Pingrodach, Schellingstraße 25
PINGRODACH is activating Schellingstraße 25 as a new art space in the heart of Maxvorstadt, just a few steps away from its KUNZT66 project space.
Since moving into Schellingstraße at the beginning of July, Johannes Rodach has been transforming this historic location—a former antique bookshop with 135 years of history—into a vibrant art space. Traces of the past remain visible, but have been deliberately reinterpreted. Each exhibition works with the material left behind by the space and writes another chapter about it.
Art is the story that connects us as human beings. And at Schellingstraße 25, this story is currently being retold.
PINGRODACH does not view art as decoration, but rather as a seismographic organ of a society in transition. Aesthetic quality is a prerequisite, but never an end goal. Good art must provoke, surprise, and amaze—because it confronts us with a reality that lies beyond the familiar.
So far, there have been three exhibitions in the new premises.
Show 1
„Der Kaiser träumt nackt“ – Retelling instead of nostalgia“Der Kaiser träumt nackt” (The Emperor Dreams Naked) set the tone: a new narrative in front of old bookshelves, a deliberate collision of the present and history. Jonathan Meese’s demand “All power to art” became a methodological stance here: art asserts itself through innovation and provocation.
For the opening exhibition, a new narrative was hung in front of the shelves filled with old books. The books remained not as decoration, but as an archaeological layer of depth.
Show 2
„sektor 24“intensified this principle. Herbert Nauderer used the shelves as a pseudo-archival resonance chamber for a system of fiction, control, and identity—a mirror of the present, fraying between rationality and delusion.
Nauderer’s work impressively demonstrated what happens when systems take on a life of their own—a commentary on the present, which is being ground down threateningly between rationality and madness.
Show 3
Finally, with “Working Through,” the title became the program. During a profound renovation, Rodach used only existing materials: an aesthetic recycling that integrates the space itself into the process. The positions—from the school of Karin Kneffel—show painting as a form of knowledge: precise, resistant, patient.
PINGRODACH- —a profile
PINGRODACH is a gallery that sees art as a space for the human family to connect.
The dream of the creative machine has been fulfilled—but the auratic power of art remains irreplaceable.
Rodach focuses on artists who expand our understanding of the present, rather than reassuring us. His spaces provide a framework in which art regains its original function: to sense where a society stands—and where it might be heading.
PINGRODACH is thus more than just an exhibition venue.
It is a place for sharpening perception, expanding discourse, and aesthetic precision.
A space that does not decorate, but interprets.
A space that takes the future seriously.