Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method

Curated by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Max Becher e Urs Stahel

23 APRIL – 27 SEPTEMBER 2026

MAST.Galleries - MAST.Foyer

TUESDAY – SUNDAY, 10 AM – 7 PM

FREE ADMISSION

TUESDAY, 2 JUNE, THE MAST.GALLERIES ARE REGULARLY OPEN

Guides are always available for free to to provide further information about the photographs.

Fondazione MAST presents Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method, a major retrospective dedicated to the German artist couple (1931–2007 and 1934–2015 respectively). Important figures in the history of 20th-century photography, the Bechers developed a visual language based on a rigorous methodological approach, and their influence on contemporary photography is still recognizable to this day.

The exhibition is curated by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Max Becher and Urs Stahel. For the first time in Europe, it showcases the methodological and thematic breadth of the couple’s oeuvre. On display in the MAST Galleries are more than 350 original black-and-white photographs, as well as an extensive collection of related materials, including drawings, books and posters, to help provide further insights into the complexity and consistency of the Bechers’working method.

With Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method, the public can trace the evolution of a line of artistic research that redefined the canons of photography. The Bechers have influenced generations of artists, helping to create a new visual paradigm. The exhibition was conceived by Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne in cooperation with the Bernd & Hilla Becher Studio. It was organized by the Fondazione MAST with a new exhibition project realized in a collaborative effort between the two institutions.

The exhibition, History of a Method, is divided into 10 sections, providing an in-depth analysis of the themes and methods underpinning the Bechers’ work.

In dialogue with the exhibition, the MAST.Foyer presents a focus dedicated to the photographers of the Düsseldorf School of Photography, with works from the MAST Collection by Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Tata Ronkholz, shedding light on the legacy and long-lasting relevance of the Bechers’ method through the research of subsequent generations.

Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method: an accessible exhibition

To mark the exhibition, Fondazione MAST is promoting a project dedicated to cultural accessibility, curated by MAD Servizi Culturali in collaboration with La Girobussola APS.The initiative aims to encourage a wider and more inclusive experience of the exhibition, through tools and visiting methods designed specifically for blind and visually impaired visitors. For the project, tactile panels have been created for a selection of works, designed to allow independent exploration thanks to QR codes that link to text guides developed specifically to accompany the tactile reading of the images and explore their content in greater depth.

Guided tours with an accompanying guide are also available, designed to offer a narrative, sensory and participatory experience.

Calendar of accessible guided tours:Sunday 7 June – 10.15 am – Tuesday 23 June – 4.30 pmSunday 28 June – 10.15 am – Tuesday 7 July – 4.30 pm

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutesHow to take part: The tours are free and available by booking.

For information and bookings: info@madserviziculturali.com – +39 348 164 4435

Marisa Merz – The Dance of the Hours

Curated by Francesco Manacorda with Marianna Vecellio, Chiara Bertola with Chiara Parisi, and Beatrice Merz with Sébastien Delot

October 29, 2026 – April 4, 2027

Manica Lunga, Third Floor

Meret Oppenheim, Traccia, 1972, garage BENTIVOGLIO, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna, ph. Carlo Favero

The exhibition is part of the exhibition project *Marisa Merz – La danza delle ore*, organized in collaboration with Fondazione Merz, Turin, and GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin.

To mark the centennial of Marisa Merz’s birth, three major institutions are jointly organizing an exhibition dedicated to the artist, conceived in three acts and curated by a separate curatorial team for each venue.

Marisa Merz, the only female protagonist of the Arte Povera movement, employed multiple expressive languages: painting, sculpture, drawing, video, and installation. The three chapters aim to create a collective and multifaceted portrait that reflects the depth of her contribution to the evolution of Italian and global art.

The exhibition at the Castello di Rivoli will begin with a reconstruction of “E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare,” a major exhibition project that the artist presented in 1980 at the Tucci Russo gallery in Turin and later replicated at the Venice Art Biennale that same year. In keeping with the artist’s practice, the installation will serve as the exhibition’s focal point, from which themes and research will branch out.

Meret Oppenheim in the street exhibitions at Palazzo Bentivoglio

Palazzo Bentivoglio’s “street exhibition” series continues in the display window facing Via del Borgo di San Pietro with a new installment: the focus is on the work of Meret Oppenheim, one of the most original artists of European Surrealism.

Through June 6, 2026, Wednesday–Saturday, 7:00 PM–11:00 PM

Meret Oppenheim, Traccia, 1972, garage BENTIVOGLIO, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna, ph. Carlo Favero

Bologna, May 21, 2026. Palazzo Bentivoglio’s “street exhibition” program continues, featuring works displayed in the space’s window facing Via del Borgo di San Pietro. Through June 6, 2026, the star of the BENTIVOGLIO garage is Traccia (1972) by Meret Oppenheim, a work in which the Swiss artist transforms a piece of furniture into an ambiguous and unsettling presence, suspended between memories of the past and surrealist metamorphosis. Two brass legs fixed beneath an elliptical top evoke the remnant of an interrupted mutation: a familiar form that escapes its function and instead opens up to a poetic and animalistic imagination.

The work was created within the context of Ultramobile, a project launched in the early 1970s by Simon, the company founded in 1968 by the Bolognese entrepreneur Dino Gavina together with Maria Simonicini. Following pivotal experiences such as those at Gavina Spa and Flos, Gavina embarked on a radically different direction with Simon, entrusting artists—rather than designers—with the opportunity to reinvent the domestic object. Going against the grain of the major transformations in Italian design of the period—marked by student and working-class protests that brought new social needs and desires to the fore—Ultramobile drew on an imagery rooted in Dadaism and Surrealism, reinterpreting works and ideas in which form renounced all practical purpose to embrace the poetic and symbolic.

Eva e Franco Mattes, Ceiling cat, 2016

In these years, as Italian design is profoundly redefining its own language—thanks in part to international dialogue and the historic exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz at MoMA in New York—Gavina’s work follows a different trajectory. As curator Davide Trabucco states, “it has no connection to the questions of those years.” The artists’ works are not tied to any corporate know-how, but are the result of the individual’s creative flair; there is no relationship between form and function, and above all, rather than foreshadowing new worlds, they seem to evoke reassuring vestiges of the past, which we have already encountered in some fantasy or dreamlike moment.”

In Traccia, Oppenheim draws on this dreamlike dimension and his own surrealist zoomorphic vocabulary to give form to an object that defies classification. The golden legs supporting the elliptical surface belong to an indefinable animal: “too large to belong to a normal chicken, too small to perhaps belong to a now-extinct prehistoric creature. But on the surface we find some traces; others like it have undergone the same transformation, yet managed to fly away from us.”