Under the title “Passion Mensch”, the Laing Gallery shows selected exhibits from the cycle “Die Passion” by the painter, graphic artist and sculptor Otto Pankok (1893–1966), which comprises a total of 60 charcoal drawings, and juxtaposes them with the sculptural Stations of the Cross “Der geschundene Mensch” by his student Günther Uecker (*1930).

Pankok dedicated his expressionist work especially to the socially excluded and disadvantaged. The Passion Cycle in particular was created under the socio-political parameters in the early phase of National Socialism.

Uecker is considered one of the most important contemporary object artists. His own socio-political aspiration is evident in an artistic world of ideas that shows numerous parallels to his former teacher Otto Pankok, whom he calls “my chosen father”.

In this sense Pankok’s “Passion” and Uecker’s sculpture cycle “The Wounded Man” combine to form a conceptual unity that has never been shown before.

The exhibition was conceived in close cooperation with the Otto Pankok Museum Hünxe as part of the ‘Katholikentag’ in Münster 2018.