ZUsammenKUNFT DER SPEZIES at the Mannheim Art Association: Painting for a common future
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When animals become subjects: Hartmut Kiewert’s ZUsammenKUNFT DER SPEZIES
In the Mannheim Art Association, Hartmut Kiewert invites you to a concentrated examination of the relationship between humans and animals with ZUsammenKUNFT DER SPEZIES. The exhibition combines contemporary figurative painting with social reflection and opens up an art experience in which aesthetic experience, animal ethics, and cultural education intertwine.
Figurative painting as a counter-image to the anthropocentric view
Hartmut Kiewert, born in 1980 in Koblenz, initially studied architecture and later painting and graphics at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. In 2010, he graduated with honors. Since 2008, the Leipzig-based artist has been intensively engaged with the social relationship between humans and animals.
His visual worlds formulate counter-images to exploitation, displacement, and hierarchical domination. Pigs, cows, and chickens do not appear as decorative stage props but as autonomous individuals and acting subjects. This shifts the perspective: Humans lose their self-evident priority, while animals step into the center of the pictorial order as sentient and social beings.
Calm, color, and a painting of concentrated perception
Kiewert’s painting develops its effect from a controlled, detailed composition. Space, figure, and color stand in a clear, almost quiet order. The atmosphere of the exhibition is not created by dramatic gestures but by the slowing down of seeing. Each examination of a work leads deeper into pictorial spaces, where familiar landscapes, urban places, and utopian situations acquire a new social choreography.
The precise figurative imagery connects sensual presence with art historical reflection. Light, surfaces, and bodies give the scenes a tangible materiality, while the calm composition invites longer contemplation. Thus, an aesthetic is created that does not instruct but changes perception.
Utopia and social responsibility
ZUsammenKUNFT DER SPEZIES understands the exhibition as a think tank for a common future. Kiewert’s counter-worlds question how a coexistence beyond exploitation and objectification could look. The art moves between critique of the present, animal ethics, and a poetic vision of multi-species society.
A publication by the Mannheim Art Association with texts by Prof. Dr. Jessica Ullrich and a foreword by Dr. Friedrich W. Kasten will appear in 2026 alongside the exhibition. The catalog deepens the art historical and social classification of the exhibited works and complements the aesthetic experience with scientific perspectives.
Conclusion: An exhibition that changes perspectives
Visitors can expect an impressive exhibition of contemporary painting that connects beauty, precision, and social responsibility. Those who engage with the quiet intensity of the images experience art as a possibility to question entrenched viewpoints and rethink the relationship between humans, animals, and the environment. A visit to the Mannheim Art Association enriches cultural perception and creates space for a sustainable aesthetic experience.
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