House Tour #12, April 2025
Our Collection on a Journey
Manfred Bartling in Westend – A Collaboration with DRK Kliniken Berlin
In this edition of HOUSE TOURS, we are pleased to share exciting news from Haus Kunst Mitte: for the very first time, parts of our in-house collection are being exhibited outside our premises. In collaboration with the non-profit organization KUNST im WESTEND, nearly 100 graphic works by Manfred Bartling are now on view at the DRK Kliniken Berlin Westend. These pieces are displayed in the surgical wards 1b and 4b, offering hospital visitors and art enthusiasts alike a fresh perspective on a largely undiscovered chapter of German Pop Art.
Photos Above: © Andrea Katheder, Installation Views BARTLING POP, in DRK Kliniken Berlin Westend
Manfred Bartling (1938–2020) left behind a prolific body of work characterized by vivid colors, graphic experimentation, and serial methods. Over several decades, he developed depictions of everyday scenes, bold abstract figurations, and subtle text-image combinations. Especially distinctive are his pop-expressive drawings and paintings of household objects and foods—such as eggs, breakfast rolls, or colorful vegetable still lifes—which he grouped under the term “Bartling POP.” Many of these works, created during the 1970s, open up a unique and previously overlooked niche within German Pop Art. Thanks to this exhibition, these vibrant and thought-provoking pieces are finally receiving the public attention they deserve.
Together with his wife, the writer Elisabeth Bartling, Manfred Bartling founded both the Asyl der Kunst Foundation and Haus Kunst Mitte, which today preserves and manages his artistic estate.
Manfred Bartling, Untitled, 1970, acrylic spray and collage on canvas, 46 x 95 cm.
A centerpiece of this collaboration is the painting Untitled (1970), an exemplary work from Bartling’s early pop art period. This piece, on loan from the Haus Kunst Mitte collection, complements the exhibited graphic works on paper. In this painting, Bartling employs sprayed acrylic paint and collage techniques to create a dynamic composition that centers on everyday objects. The image features a row of abstract, schematically rendered storage jars, arranged on or sliding off a shelf. The use of monochromatic tones in red, blue, and beige results in a bold, poster-like aesthetic, evoking serial production techniques.
Contrasting the structured alignment of the jars is a realistically collaged jar of Thomy mayonnaise, seemingly in mid-fall from the shelf. This striking collage element disrupts the compositional grid and intensifies the tension between repetition and singularity. It simultaneously references mass production and individual expression. By playfully incorporating a common consumer product, Bartling bridges international pop art tendencies with his own subtly ironic visual language.
The painting conveys both discipline—through its serial forms—and levity, through the dynamic placement of a tangible product. For Bartling, household items are not merely illustrative objects; they become a critical engagement with consumer culture, commodity aesthetics, and the visual codes of modern society.
The exhibitions FOUNDATIONS and ZWEI ANSICHTEN – DREI DIMENSIONEN: Artist couple Elke Judith Wagner und Frank Dornseif will be on view until July 25, 2025.