Established positions. A new context. And a Baroque castle that answers back.
Some exhibition titles promise more than any press release can deliver. Genesis is one of them.
The word carries weight: the first book, the first sentence, the first moment before the light. It is also a naming that works in retrospect – you only call something Genesis once you know that something will come of it. Giving an exhibition this title is not a statement about the past. It is a statement about the future.
That Favori Art titles its first major group exhibition FAVORI No. 1: Genesis – not an opening, not a premiere, but a numbering with weight – is no coincidence. It is a commitment.
Not Discovery. Positioning.
The obvious choice would have been a debut exhibition with unknown names and fresh faces, with the gesture of supporting emerging talent. Genesis would have allowed for that. Favori Art deliberately decided otherwise.
The eight positions coming together at Schloss Gleina in May 2026 are not newcomers. They are artists with their own profiles, their own exhibition histories, their own collectors – names visible in the German-speaking art world and beyond. That is not a curatorial weakness; it is the actual statement.
Because here, Genesis does not ask: who are you? The artists answered that question long ago. The question this exhibition asks is a different one: what emerges when established positions enter a shared context for the first time?
What happens when eight established artistic languages are brought into dialogue – under one title, in one place, with one shared question behind them?
That is the curatorial core of FAVORI No. 1.
Favori Art sees itself not only as a platform for presentation but as a provider of context: an authority that does not merely show artistic positions but sets them in relation to one another.
The Place as the Real Statement
Schloss Gleina, Burgenlandkreis, Saxony-Anhalt —
May 9 to May 31, 2026
The Baroque castle, built between 1689 and 1739, with its imposing mansard roof and Rococo stucco ceilings on the upper floor, lies between Freyburg an der Unstrut and Querfurt – set in a landscape whose quiet earnestness is hard to ignore.
Since 2013, Swiss cultural producer Felix Schenker has understood the castle, in the spirit of Joseph Beuys, as a social sculpture – open to projects that engage with space, society and art. An international art biennial takes place here every two years.
So this is no neutral white cube. It is the opposite.
And that is decisive. A Genesis exhibition in a sober row of galleries would be a different statement. In a castle that itself knows a history of new beginnings – a cultural fabric of loss, change and reappropriation – the term takes on a different density.
The Blue Salon, the ballroom, the library with its beamed ceiling and paneled walls: these rooms are not a backdrop. They are participants.
Here, the beginning does not take place in an empty room – but in one that is already full of time.
Eight Positions – and None of Them by Chance
Olli Boehm works with what lies between perception and language. His images do not meet you like a statement but like a mood. Not loud, not explanatory – and yet they stay with you. For him, the origin lies not in the motif but in the moment of lingering.
Erich Graf sets the world in calm juxtapositions: animal and space in balance. His visual language is reduced but precise. For him, Genesis happens in the moment of attention – before the motif is decided.
Christine Graf finds her origin in energy. Her paintings affirm themselves before they explain themselves. No hesitation, no concealment. For her, Genesis is the decision to be fully present.
Sadik Uslu works inside the color. His gestural abstraction is not an expression of agitation but of condensation. Between realism and abstraction, landscapes emerge that carry memory. For him, Genesis is a physical, almost archaeological act.
Woytek, known internationally above all as a sculptor, deliberately shows drawings here – the origin of his sculptural work. His lines are not a preliminary stage but a moment in their own right. Fascinated by historical formal languages, especially the Baroque and Mannerism, he thinks of form as a process. For him, Genesis is the moment before transformation.
Rike Wölke begins in the body. Her large-format works grow out of movement, not concept. Color, gesture and impulse interlock. For her, Genesis is literal: movement before the image.
Matthias Hübner works with images that carry more than one layer. Black and white meets neon, the visible meets change. His works shift in the light. For him, Genesis is not a beginning but a reemergence.
Ali Görmez, an internationally active Pop artist from Berlin, brings an immediate energy to the exhibition. His works grow out of clarity, not searching. Color, figure and message are decided early on. In an exhibition that asks about origins, Görmez stands for a position without hesitation.
Eight positions. Eight attempts to grasp the same beginning.
A First Time That Is Not Naive
FAVORI No. 1: Genesis differs from many opening exhibitions in its awareness of its own risk.
The numbering is not a detail. It is a promise.
There will be a No. 2. A No. 3. A development that will only become visible in retrospect.
Setting a number means: we do not know where it will lead. But we are going.
Resonance Needs Friction
Contemporary art in historic spaces thrives on contradiction.
Not as provocation, but as dialogue.
A Baroque room meets a contemporary visual language.
Stillness meets energy.
Line meets material.
The rooms react. The works respond.
No position dominates. None dissolves another.
The exhibition happens in between.
Genesis
Genesis asks where something begins.
Schloss Gleina shows:
it never begins at zero.
Invitation
Some of the works on view are available during the exhibition.
Collector inquiries and further information are handled individually.
Come. Be part of it. From the very beginning.
The opening of FAVORI No. 1: Genesis at Schloss Gleina begins on
May 9, 2026, at 11 a.m.
Everyone is welcome – collectors, art lovers and the curious.
No prior knowledge needed. No dress code.
Just a willingness to experience eight strong positions in a place that carries history of its own.
We look forward to seeing you.
With the kind support of Felix Schenker, who is making Schloss Gleina available for this project.
Curated by Franziska Sevik / Favori Art
FAVORI No. 1: Genesis
Schloss Gleina, Saxony-Anhalt
Opening: May 9, 2026 — 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Exhibition dates: May 9 to 31, 2026
Free admission · Everyone welcome
