HOUSE TOUR #21, February 2026
Insight into the Depot
Portraits by Manfred Bartling
In our “Hausführungen,” our online format, we focus either on the artworks from our temporary exhibitions or – as in this edition – on works from our own collection.
As part of the exhibition ‘faces of mind’, the parallel cabinet exhibition in winter 2025/26 in the Stifterraum is also dedicated to the human head. On display are Manfred Bartling's haunting portraits and head images, which oscillate between figuration and abstraction. The selected works explore both the human mind and the purely representational function of a portrait.
Installation view Manfred Bartling in the founders' room in Haus. Kunst. Mitte.
Using reduced and expressive forms, he creates heads that both establish identity and reveal inner states. Lines, overlays and fragmented structures condense into faces and heads. By juxtaposing Bartling's self-portrait with the portrait of his wife, the poet Elisabeth Bartling, Bartling's interpersonal relationships are incorporated as a further thematic level.
The room dedicated to him invites visitors to rediscover the ambiguity of the portrait: as a mirror of perception, memory and imagination, as an image or as a window into the inner self.
On display are five oil paintings and one tempera painting by Manfred Bartling from the years 1951 to 1968. The display case shows five sketches collected from Manfred Bartling's sketchbooks, which he produced between 1960 and 1989.
The special exhibition ‘faces of mind’ is an initiative of the PECADI Art Foundationof Dr Carmen and Dietmar Peikert, whose collection forms the core of the exhibition.