Sweeter than Honey A panorama of Written Art

The phenomenon of writing in images is explored through handwriting, calligraphy and typography. Starting with Art Informel in the 1950s, through conceptual art since the 1960s, the more than 100 works exhibited reveal the continuous significance of written art across generations and cultures up to this day. Artists invent fantasy alphabets and abstract sign languages, write poems and calendar entries, quote from literature and political documents, and translate thoughts and conversations into sprayed, graphic, gestural or embroidered messages. The performativity of writing can be experienced in material and physical traces in painting and photography as well as in expansive, large-scale works.

‘Sweeter than Honey. A Panorama of Written Art’ is the most comprehensive presentation of works in the Written Art Collection held to date and, as such, marks the culmination of a long-term cooperation with the Modern Art Collection in the Pinakothek der Moderne.

With works by Etel Adnan, Nasrollah Afjei, Maliheh Afnan, Khaled Al-Saai, Mounira Al Solh, Siah Armajani, Younes Baba-Ali, Willi Baumeister, Alighiero Boetti, Peter Brüning, Sophie Calle, Chen Danqing, Claudia Comte, Thierry De Cordier, Mohammad Ehsaei, Golnaz Fathi, Jilali Gharbaoui, Karl Otto Götz, Adolph Gottlieb, Katharina Grosse, Gu Wenda, Shilpa Gupta, Andreas Gursky, Hans Hartung, Susan Hefuna, Hans Hofmann, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Yūichi Inoue, Alfredo Jaar, On Kawara, Franz Kline, Glenn Ligon, Nja Mahdaoui, Mark Manders, Brice Marden, André Masson, Hassan Massoudy, Georges Mathieu, Henri Michaux, Joan Mitchell, Shiryū Morita, Farhad Moshiri, Adam Pendleton, Qiu Zhijie, Walid Raad, Ed Ruscha, Kazuo Shiraga, Pierre Soulages, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mark Tobey, Lawrence Weiner, Fritz Winter.