Whenever I paint I think about nothing, I see colours.

(Paul Cézanne)

In 2018, the Arp Museum will be under the spell of "the Realm of Colour". The year opens with the exhibition "Gotthard Graubner – Breathing Images", which will be devoted to the work of the famous German painter Gotthard Graubner (1930–2013), from 18 February 2018 to 10 February 2019. Since the 1970s, Graubner was closely connected with the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck. Better than anyone else he delves into the theme of colour and its multiple nuances, layer after layer. He frequently employs a canvas lined with synthetic wool. So-called 'colour space bodies', dense cushion-like coloured fabrics, emerge from this. They reflect nature's vast palette of colour and narrate about sun and sky. Through their intensity they attract our view; you can lose yourself visually in them in order to discover your own colour landscapes. The exhibition is framed by the spacious, light-flooded architecture of the prominent architect Richard Meier and the impressive surrounding nature.

We will trace the arc of colour back into history. Since 2009, the Artchamber Rau has become home for one of the most precious German private collections of ancient art: the Collection Rau for UNICEF, which is on permanent loan in our museum. In parallel and in close cooperation with the Graubner Retrospective, we would like to present the theme of colour under the motto "In the Realm of Colour" (18 March until 30 July 2018) over the course of the centuries and in dialogue with Modernity. We will examine and reveal the use and meaning, as well as the language of colours, beginning with their symbolic value in medieval art, through their subjectively emotional use in Baroque painting, to the momentary, glimmering impressionistic landscapes and the Fauves' abstract colour storms. K. O. Götz, Antonius Höckelmann, Ulrich Erben and Mark Tobey will be among the featured exponents of contemporary painting.