The exhibition brings together works by Dorothy Iannone (1933–2022) and Alejandra Pombo Su (born 1979). Its focus is on Iannone’s drawing and text series The Berlin beauties (1977–78), which is part of the Kupferstichkabinett’s (Museum of Prints and Drawings) collection and is being presented here in its entirety for the first time. It is complemented with a new drawing by Alejandra Pombo Su, as well as a performance she created especially for the exhibition.

The Berlin beauties: an illustrated love poem

Dorothy Iannone created the series of ink drawings The Berlin beauties shortly after moving from the United States to West Berlin, where she settled permanently in 1976, following an artist residency. In the 70-part series, she combines intimate drawings and lyrical texts to explore the everyday, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions of love, desire, and sexual attachment, while creating an autonomous female voice in the process.

These works on paper mounted on wood were published as an artist’s book in 1978 and entered the Kupferstichkabinett in 1988 through the artist support programme and as part of the Federal State of Berlin’s acquisition activities. This exhibition marks their first public presentation at the museum. The exhibition highlights a work that centres on female self-determination and sexual freedom.

In her work, Iannone repeatedly drew on her American roots and consistently challenged prudishness, hypocrisy and social conventions. For instance, on a silkscreen poster for her 1979 exhibition at the Studiogalerie in West Berlin, she alluded to the Statue of Liberty – whose official name is “Liberty Enlightening the World” (1886) – thereby broadening the traditional symbol of democratic ideals to include the question of whom this promise of freedom actually extends to.

Alejandra Pombo Su: a year of devotion

The Galician artist Alejandra Pombo Su’s practice spans performance, poetry, video, sculpture and drawing. Like Dorothy Iannone five decades earlier, she is currently a fellow of the DAAD’s Berlin Artists-in-Residence Program. During her one-year stay in Berlin, she is exploring Iannone’s legacy and expanding upon it through her interest in the relationship between humans and animals.

In her new work Ein jahr der hingabe (A year of devotion), human and animal forms of life intertwine to form fluid constellations of bodies, environments and materials, with items such as butterfly wings, petals, rhinestones and nail varnish embedded within the watercolour layers of the drawings, becoming part of these interconnections. The result is an open structure of multiple drawings, texts and material that fosters reflection, association and reorganisation.

Across generations

An interest in physicality, forms of connection and a strength founded in vulnerability links the two artists across generations. They are also united by an artistic practice that is not limited to a single medium, using drawing as a central means to shift entrenched ways of thinking towards new perspectives.

Drawing and performance

On 4 July 2026, Alejandra Pombo Su will present Under honey, a site-specific voice performance created especially for the exhibition, in the Gemäldegalerie’s Cranach Hall. For the first time, she is expanding her solo performance to include collaboration with a Berlin women’s choir, the Feature Chor Berlin. The work explores the voice as vibration, which detaches itself from its corporeal origin and connects with the open, incorporeal space. This creates intense soundscapes that resonate with the museum architecture, the artworks and those present.