Asta Gröting
A Wolf, Primates and a Breathing Curve

Intimate moments and closeness characterize the multifaceted work of the German artist Asta Gröting (b. 1961). Originally and still working as a sculptor, she has expanded her artistic practice to include film and video. She has been one of the most influential figures in contemporary German art since the 1990s. In her work, she renders the invisible visible by focusing on processes that often go unnoticed in everyday life, as well as on interpersonal relationships. 

The Städel Museum presented a solo exhibition of Asta Gröting’s work, featuring eight works created between 2015 and 2025, including seven video works and one laser projection specially developed for the exhibition. This selection enabled to experience the fluid transitions between nature and culture, intimacy and distance, the familiar and the foreign. The videos capture or stage moments from Gröting’s own environment and human existence. Her deliberate manipulation of time lends the works a particular intensity. 

Asta Gröting’s films are more than visual representations of our environment: they open up contemplative spaces that encourage reflection on the intricacies of hidden relationships and their dynamics. Through her work, Gröting shows how art can act as a medium for interpersonal connections by capturing intimate and intense encounters. Her sensitive translation of captivating moments into moving images invites to explore the subtle, often hidden liminal states of existence, and experience the poetry of the moment anew. Highlights of the exhibition included the work “Breathing Curve”, 2025, created especially for the exhibition, and the premiere of her latest video work, “Matthias, Helge and Asta” (2025), featuring Matthias Brandt, Helge Schneider and Asta Gröting herself as protagonists.

Curator
Svenja Grosser, Head of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum

Project Manager
Gioia Mattner, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum