INTRO
For the retrospective “Wolfgang Joop im Kunstraum”, Xenorama brought the designer's fashion photography and film into the exhibition as media installations. It was a show in Potsdam about a designer born in Potsdam, made by a collective that works there.
The retrospective at Kunstraum Potsdam, Schiffbauergasse ran from 4 October to 8 November 2025. Joop, born in 1944, has worked as a fashion designer, painter, illustrator, bestselling author, art collector and university lecturer, and the exhibition set out to show that range rather than fashion alone. Curated by Edwin Lemberg, it brought together 225 works on 450 square metres, across two levels and six thematic areas: drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, fashion designs and digital works, complemented by light and sound installations.
Key challenges
Moving image among 225 originals
Screens behind the glass of the entrance
Crowds under time-slot entry
A POTSDAM SEASON
It was the second of two Joop exhibitions at the Kunstraum that autumn. From 13 September, the student show “Zwischen Zeichen und Wundern” had looked at young designers who took up his legacy. The exhibition was organised by Kunstraum Potsdam together with Team Joop and the City of Potsdam; admission was free and, because of the demand, entry was by time slot. In 2013 Joop had told the Tagesspiegel that, as a native Potsdamer, he was ready “to realise my own and others' visions with unillusioned optimism”.
Our part was the moving image. Tall vertical screens in the glass pavilion at the entrance carried runway imagery and portraits, so the first thing visitors saw of Joop was his fashion in motion, before they reached the rooms. Inside, a wall of screens took up the same material again, one layer among the drawings and garments. Xenorama has its studio in the Rechenzentrum Potsdam, a few minutes from the Schiffbauergasse.
CREDITS
Media installations: Xenorama
Exhibition: Kunstraum Potsdam with Team Joop and the Landeshauptstadt Potsdam