Gerhard Rühm

Gerhard Rühm celebrates his 95th birthday in 2025. The poet, playwright, draughtsman, painter, collagist, conceptualist, performer, composer, musician and interpreter of his own works remains one of the last living legends of the Austrian post-war avant-garde.

Ten years after his first retrospective at the BRUSEUM, the Neue Galerie Graz is re-examining the multifaceted work of this poly-artist. Throughout his life, Rühm constantly expanded the boundaries of traditional art genres, exploring new poetic methods.

Whether composing language as music, collaging words as images or putting writing to the test as drawing, he has never fulfilled the usual expectations or resigned himself to classical conventions. He has detached language as material from its conceptual contexts, lending it expressive qualities. He has explored the melodic potential of drawing and composed music with pictures. He has merged music, literature and the visual arts into a synthesis that had not previously existed in this form in modern art history.

The Neue Galerie Graz has continuously collected and exhibited the artist’s work over the years. Out of gratitude and a sense of solidarity, the artist has donated important works from all phases of his career to the museum. The exhibition also presents these donations.