Thierry De Cordier and Mark Manders in Sweeter Than Honey
10 December 2025—12 April 2026
Group exhibition at Pinakothek der Moderne Art, Munich, Germany
The Written Art Collection is unique in its profile. For the first time, the Modern Art Collection (Sammlung Moderne Kunst) in the Pinakothek der Moderne is dedicating a major special exhibition focussing on its holdings of works of scriptural and text-based art. More than 60 artistic positions invite visitors to engage with a 1,200-square-meter exhibition parcours that reveals a panorama of written art and encourages reflection on the reciprocal relationship between text and image. The selection presents writing as both an artistic medium and material from the mid-20th century to the present day. ‘Sweeter than Honey. A Panorama of Written Art’ highlights a dynamic socio-political dialogue between artists from a pancultural, global perspective.
The exhibition title is inspired by the work ‘Mashrabiya – Knowledge is Sweeter than Honey (Arabic)’ (2011) by the Egyptian-German artist Susan Hefuna. It reflects the poetic power of art in conveying and imparting knowledge.
With works by Etel Adnan, Nasrollah Afjei, Maliheh Afnan, Khaled Al-Saai, Mounira Al Solh, Karel Appel, Siah Armajani, Younes Baba-Ali, Willi Baumeister, Alighiero Boetti, Peter Brüning, Sophie Calle, Chen Danqing, Claudia Comte, Thierry De Cordier, Christian Dotremont, Mohammed 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, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Huang Rui, Yūichi Inoue, Alfredo Jaar, On Kawara, Franz Kline, Rachid Koraïchi, Glenn Ligon, Nja Mahdaoui, Mark Manders, Brice Marden, André Masson, Hassan Massoudy, Georges Mathieu, Henri Michaux, Joan Mitchell, Shiryū Morita, Farhad Moshiri, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Adam Pendleton, Qiu Zhijie, Walid Raad, Ed Ruscha, Kazuo Shiraga, Pierre Soulages, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Fred Thieler, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mark Tobey, Emilio Vedova, Lawrence Weiner, Fritz Winter.