Anys Reimann. Mirrorball
With Mirrorball the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst is presenting the first solo museum exhibition of Anys Reimann (*1965, Düsseldorf). In her works, the artist explores the dynamic field of identity and body, of cultural affiliation and representation. She is known above all for pictures of Black women: self-confident, complex and challenging all at once. Reimann counters perspectives marked by western colonialism with pictorial worlds evincing a unique individuality. Her works celebrate the hybrid and the ambiguous. She cleverly combines fragments from art history, film, music, fashion and literature into a vibrating contemporary mythology. Icons and female outsiders, queer pictorial languages and an oppositional Black pop culture are omnipresent.
The exhibition in Bremen presents comprehensive insights into Reimann’s most recent creative output: large-format collage-paintings, enigmatic sculptures made of leather, mirror objects or bodily casts with clenched fists. Many works have a multi-sensory structure. Alongside the visual element, smell and touch play an essential role. Among other things, an olfactory sculpture is featured as part of the exhibition. Smells such as patchouli, incense, wood or spices play an important role for the artist. They are closely linked with memories that Reimann activates in her works in such a way as to combine the personal with the general.
Several new works were created for Mirrorball, including a black garden in the museum—a walk-in installation in the shape of an archipelago with plants that all have black leaves or blossoms; a sensory, almost unreal biotope to which smells have been added especially for this site.
Exhibition on Level 3
Curated by Ingo Clauß
About Anys Reimann
Anys Reimann was born in 1965 as the daughter of a German mother and West African father (from Guinea). She grew up in the Ruhr District and later in Düsseldorf, where she continues to live today. After studying interior architecture in Trier (1992 to 1997), followed by professional stations in such fields as product development and in-house design and likewise as a freelance product designer, she ultimately studied free art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Thomas Grünfeld and Ellen Gallagher (2012 to 2020).
Her works are to be found in numerous private and public collections including Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20/21, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Stiftung Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Sammlung Philara, Sammlung Scharpff-Striebich, Sammlung Haus N.
Solo exhibitions (selection): Bilker Bunker, Düsseldorf (DARK STAR BACKYARD, 2024), Galerie VAN HORN, Düsseldorf (2025, 2023) and Kunstverein Gera (double exhibition with Annegret Soltau, 2025)
Group exhibitions (selection): Max-Ernst-Museum Brühl (2025), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2025), Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr (2025), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (2024), Kunsthalle Mannheim (2024), Kunstmuseum Bonn (2023)
Further information at http://anysreimann.com/nearness/.
ARCHIPELAGO (2026)
ARCHIPELAGO is part of a series of works titled
Schwarze Gärten (Black Gardens), which Anys Reimann has been creating in various forms since 2019, both indoors and in outdoor garden settings. At the Weserburg, five basins form an archipelago (a group of islands) of dark- and black-flowering plants. The plants appear as imported “exotics,” alien yet at the same time possessing a special beauty and diversity. The former warehouse architecture of the Weserburg provides a historic setting for the installation, as it served as a place of trade in the 19th and 20th centuries—initially for tobacco, and later as a coffee roastery. ARCHIPELAGO thus refers to the movement of goods and people, linked to the complex and often troubled history of the colonial era.
Drawing on Édouard Glissant’s concept of the archipelago, the islands do not appear as isolated units, but as bodies in exchange, as a network of relationships, and in this sense also invite the development of new connections and stories.
Plants: Ajuga, Alocasia, Anthurium, Begonia, Calla,
Phalaenopses Debora, Philodendron, Phormium,
Schlangenbart, Sempervivum, Zamioculcas
Press Reviews
- “The abundance is almost overwhelming, yet everything that draws from this abundance feels coherent and compelling, by no means random, and thoroughly accessible.”—Kreiszeitung, May 2, 2026
- “Simply beautiful.” – Nordsee-Zeitung, May 5, 2026
- “Confident and challenging.” – NDR Kultur Journal, April 27, 2026
- “Her paintings and sculptures draw on pop culture and art history and revolve primarily around skin, black skin.” – art, May 1, 2026
Guided Tours
Our trained staff will guide you through the exhibition, on request also on special topics, in German and English.
From €100 plus admission
Maximum of 25 people per tour (60 minutes)
Registration is required
Information and booking inquiries
Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst
+49 (0)421 59839-0
info@weserburg.de
