Summary<\/p>\n
Anne Imhof\u2019s first solo exhibition in Portugal unfolds across the Serralves Museum and park with new, site-specific works including a 60-foot steel pool
\n\u2018Fun ist ein Stahlbad\u2019 uses architecture and restraint to examine power, control, and contemporary anxiety<\/p>\n
The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art<\/a> has announced \u2018Fun ist ein Stahlbad,\u2019 Anne Imhof<\/a>\u2019s first solo exhibition in Portugal, opening December 12, 2025 and on view through April 19, 2026. The exhibition brings together a major body of newly produced works across sculpture, painting, film, and installation, created specifically for Serralves\u2019 \u00c1lvaro Siza\u2013designed museum and its 45-acre park.<\/p>\n Curated by In\u00eas Grosso, the show is deeply tied to the site, using the museum\u2019s architecture and surrounding landscape as active elements rather than neutral settings. The title \u201cFun ist ein Stahlbad\u201d references Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer\u2019s The Dialectic of Enlightenment, where \u201cfun\u201d is framed not as freedom but as a quieter form of control. That idea anchors the exhibition, reflecting Imhof\u2019s ongoing interest in power, anxiety, and the tension between promise and reality in contemporary life.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the core of the presentation is a newly commissioned, 60-foot-long steel swimming pool embedded into the P\u00e1tio do Ulmeiro just outside the museum. The installation extends from the courtyard into the interior galleries, activating a space designed to pull the park into the building. Surrounding sculptures and paintings explore themes of abandonment, fragility and the emotional emptiness left by war and systems that fail to respect human life.\n<\/p>\n The exhibition also premieres \u201cCitizen\u201d (2025), a new four-channel film featuring performers, actors, musicians and dancers. Set on the stage of Imhof\u2019s \u201cDOOM,\u201d previously shown in New York, the work reappears at Serralves as an undefined \u201chouse of hope\u201d where architecture dissolves into something unstable.\n<\/p>\n \u2018Fun ist ein Stahlbad\u2019 was developed over two years in close collaboration with architect Andrea Faraguna, with support from Spr\u00fcth Magers and the artist\u2019s studio.\n<\/p>\n Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art
R. Dom Jo\u00e3o de Castro 210
4150-417 Porto
Portugal<\/p>\n