Wolfgang Joop is far from being merely a fashion designer — an exhibition devoted to his life’s work opens this Saturday in Potsdam, highlighting the many talents of the queer artist. Towering, meter-high video projections depict his collections as if they were strutting down runways in Paris or Milan. Yet more than 200 paintings and sculptures, featuring angels and monkeys as recurring motifs, are also hung in the gallery.
The retrospective of Joop’s body of work, as he turns 81 in November, is open to the public at the Kunstraum Potsdam with free admission from October 4 to November 18, 2025.
Modern Art and Fashion United
What does this life’s work exhibition mean to him? “It’s naturally a bit ambivalent. I look at it and think: this is who you were. I don’t necessarily see a future in it, but rather a past that touches me. Because with every image and with every collection and every photograph, it’s constantly reappearing in my mind,” Joop told the German press agency a few days before the show opened. The nerves are running high.
Makers of the exhibition describe it as a bold and novel fusion of art and fashion, and Joop, alongside Karl Lagerfeld (who passed away in 2019) and Jil Sander, stands among the most successful German designers. He has collaborated with top models like Nadja Auermann and Claudia Schiffer.
He had begun painting long before: he imitated Flemish oil still lifes and Baroque putti — works that are on display in the show. “I would feel confined if I were only a fashion designer or only a sculptor or a draughtsman,” Joop told RBB Inforadio, describing himself as a “humble eccentric.”
Will the exhibition also be shown in other places?
Interest in the Potsdam retrospective, which will run for roughly six weeks, is high, according to Joop’s team. It’s possible the show could travel to other cities, Lemberg said, without providing more specific plans. The exhibition “Wolfgang Joop in the Kunstraum” is also intended as a gift to Joop’s hometown Potsdam, where he was born.
After periods in Hamburg and New York, he has returned to the place of his childhood, living close to Sanssouci Park. “Much of what I have created also carries a piece of this city within it,” Joop said in a city statement marking the opening on Saturday.
The lifework of Joop was supposed to be shown in Potsdam as part of his 80th birthday celebrations last year. The exhibition was postponed several times. In Kunstraum Potsdam, the display spans 450 square meters and six thematic sections.
