09.03. – 15.06.2025

Opening: Sat 08.03. at 18.00 in the presence of the artist

Masterpieces in Aachen
The Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen is dedicating a major survey exhibition to Michael Triegel (*1968, Erfurt) with around 80 works. With his old-masterly painting technique and his exploration of art history and its religious, mythological and spiritual themes, the contemporary artist from Leipzig links existential questions of the present about meaning, faith and identity.
The exhibition offers a special opportunity for the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum: the proximity of the temporary exhibition hall to the collection rooms on the first floor means that Triegel's works offer visitors a new perspective from which to discover the religiously influenced works of the Middle Ages in the Aachen museum. "The exhibition is a perfect fit for the museum," emphasizes Heinrich Brötz, Head of Cultural Affairs, "because works from past eras have been and continue to be successfully brought into dialogue with contemporary art here."

Tradition and provocation
Michael Triegel, who was trained in the immediate vicinity of the New Leipzig School, found his role models in the Italian Renaissance and Mannerism, Spanish Baroque and the Flemish masters of the late Middle Ages. His works stand between tradition and modernity: with self-confident aplomb, the artist adapts traditional pictorial formulas and subjects, the composition of which deliberately irritates and raises questions that he leaves to the viewer to answer. Director Till-Holger Borchert explains: "Ideally, we want to generate a cross-fertilization of different visual experiences. On the one hand, we want to attract an audience that is interested in contemporary positions in art and is now also confronted with medieval art. On the other hand, we want to surprise people who come to the museum with the opposite expectations with Michael Triegel's art."

Deeply rooted in art history, Triegel's works encourage us to reflect on the role of traditional art and religious symbolism in an increasingly secularized society. At the same time, they are forward-looking in their combination of elements of Christian iconography, ancient mythology and modern philosophy.
"I don't see the art of past centuries from a historical distance," says Michael Triegel. "For me, it's always the present."
A central aspect of his work is the reinterpretation of traditional representational concepts in surprising and often provocative pictorial inventions. For example, the nudity of Mary in a scene of the Annunciation is just as irritating as the detailed depiction of an animal carcass as the "Lamb of God". The use of his own family's facial features for holy figures creates a disturbing proximity to the reality of the viewer's life.
The iconographic refractions of classical narrative patterns challenge the viewer to reconsider the relationship between visible form and hidden content and to consciously question supposedly easily graspable motifs. Triegel describes his artistic vision as an attempt to make the invisible tangible through the visible. This becomes particularly clear in his still lifes, whose meaning and symbolic content goes beyond the visible objects. "The pictures are a great offer for everyone - with or without previous art historical experience," curator Wibke Birth is convinced. "I think that the exhibition manages to update our own perception of supposedly familiar themes and invites us to take a fresh look at them."

Famous works
Triegel gained international recognition in 2010 when he was commissioned by the Regensburg diocese to paint a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI and most recently with the completion of a Cranach altarpiece in the Naumburg cathedral choir. In addition to this work, the exhibition also presents Triegel's designs for altarpieces created for the Catholic parish in Dettelbach.

Multi-layered skills
Triegel's painting is characterized by a glazed, old-masterly technique and a multi-layered composition that lends his works an impressive depth and symbolic power. In addition to large-format religious paintings, his oeuvre also includes still lifes, portraits and landscape watercolors, drawings and prints, which impressively complement the Leipzig artist's artistic spectrum.
Biographical development
Michael Triegel, who now lives and works in Leipzig, was born in Erfurt in 1968 and grew up in the GDR largely without any religious influence. From 1990 to 1995, he studied painting at the renowned Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig under Arno Rink and Ulrich Hachulla. He gained formative experiences during his travels to Switzerland and Italy. According to his own account, he had a special artistic awakening in the Roman church Il Gesù.
From 1995 to 1997, Triegel completed a postgraduate course with Ulrich Hachulla as a Saxon state scholarship holder and graduated in 1998 with a master student diploma. He is one of the most successful artists of the so-called New Leipzig School, whose representatives work in an extremely diverse formal manner. In 2014, Triegel was baptized in Dresden's Hofkirche.

The current exhibition was created in close collaboration with the artist and Galerie Schwind. It was made possible by generous loans from the artist himself, from Galerie Schwind and from museums and private collectors from all over Germany - our special thanks go to them.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Hirmer Verlag.