German painter Adolph Menzel lived at Ritterstrasse 43 in Berlin from 1847 to 1848. He immortalized the view from his window into the back courtyard in an oil sketch, View of Rear Buildings in Berlin in the Snow (1847–48). In this work, the most important representative of German Realism reveals that he is a master of proto-Impressionist painting, which captures an unspectacular view in a particular moment—revealing a spectacular painterly quality in its ordinariness.

English artist Simon Starling, who was born in Epsom, UK, in 1967 and has explored subjects such as sustainability, ecology, and economics for years, has also repeatedly addressed masterpieces of art and cultural history such as Fiat and Piaggio as well as Tiepolo—and now Adolph Menzel.

The view of the courtyard at Ritterstrasse 43 is now blocked by a housing complex with boxy balconies. Using an elaborate 3D printing process, Starling translated Menzel’s small painting, including the frame, into a monumental installation and combined it with a photograph of the same view today, creating a dialogue between historical and contemporary genres and artistic reflection about changing urban space. It also serves as a warning: While Starling was completing the Menzel project, the pandemic was raging. Public life had come to a standstill, exhibitions were delayed, and everyone had to stay at home. Menzel’s view from the window unexpectedly became topical. The artist explained, “Due to the pandemic there was suddenly a heightened sensitivity to nature. . . . You had the feeling that you could observe spring in a much more contemplative way than you normally did.” In Ritterstrasse 43, he investigates “how we take pictures of nature and how that changed.”

The work of the artist, who is based in Copenhagen, has been presented in museums all over the world in the past few years. The exhibition at the Kunst Museum Winterthur shows a selection of the artist’s series in dialogue with paintings from the Oscar Reinhart Foundation—from Menzel to Starling, so to speak.

Curated by Konrad Bitterli and Andrea Lutz