The exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of the millennia-old cultural history of mirrors. Whether in ancient Egypt, among the Maya in Mexico, in Japan, in Venice or in today’s art and feature films – civilizations around the globe have produced mirrors and attributed different meanings and powers to them.

With 220 works of art from 95 museums and collections worldwide, the exhibition sheds light on the changing technical and technological development as well as the cultural and social significance of this reflective medium. It is about mirrors as artifacts but also about self-knowledge, vanity and wisdom, beauty, mysticism and magic and, last but not least, about the mirror medium of our time – the selfie.

Paul Delvaux, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Adolf Luther, Gerhard Richter, and others.

Further information

Photo: photomontage Water Lenses Adolf Luther, Courtesy Photo: Museum Riet­berg