Renowned for colourful and bold paintings, interiors, furniture and a combination of the three, REVERIES, TRUMPETS & TRICKS at Philara is a comprehensive overview of Anton Henning’s paintings of the past four decades. A notion of dejà-vu might take us aback at first glance—we recognize works of Courbet, Francis Bacon, Picabia, Picasso, similar yet very different. Taking the classical paintings as point of departure, Henning makes himself comfortably at home within. Like moving into a house that he remodels at will, he shares the symbolism of his inner dialogue within the confines of the now altered, previously known.
Born in Berlin, Henning lives in Berlin and Manker (Brandenburg) since returning from London and New York where success had found him in his twenties. Having quit formal training after a brief 6 months stint at artschool, Henning is an autodidact on a quest. Scouring the planet, art- and world history for elements, he returns the found goods to us in his paintings reconfigured, reassembled, with great energy, enormous output and a good dose of humour. You will find a fridge wrily placed on a beach, or Picasso sculptures paying a visit to his local town Manker. In a tongue- in-cheek nod to the commercial nature of the world we live in, many of his paintings feature his signature motif, an amorphous disc resembling a ship propeller which he dotingly calls Hennling (‘little Henning’). Taking on traditional themes such as still life, portraiture and landscapes he humourously makes them his own in his subversive rendering. Mimicking known painting techniques, poking fun at the traditional values of the genres he exposes the hollow value system of the market- and personality driven (art) world. In such he also donates – rather than sells – large parts of his oeuvre to museums and institions, a number of which are showing his work simultaneously this fall. —Uscha Pohl
Curated by Julika Bosch, Hannah Niemeier
Two Jubilees, three exhibitions
Collection Philara, Birkenstraße 47a, 40233 Düsseldorf; philara.de
Concurrent exhibitions include: “Between Spaces,” Spot on, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, through 2 November 2025; “Interieur No. 681,” Kunstmuseum Bonn (through spring 2026), “Interieur No. 687”, Kunsthalle Bremen (until spring 2027) Henning’s “Interieur No. 253” is permanently installed at the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen. Antonyme Salon by Anton Henning, Wolfgang Ullrich and Jana Noritsch hosts various curatorial projects and invites guests to talks, discussions on art and modernity. derantonymesalon.com
“La Rencontre No 4” is a take on “The Meeting/La Rencontre,” by Courbet, which was a 1854 commission of his patron Alfred Bruyas, to represent a meeting between Courbet himself, Bruyas, his servant Calas and dog Breton. In Henning’s work, Henning’s selfportrait replaces Courbet’s, Courbet’s patron has become a blind art collector and the humble servant an art advisor. Walking stick and hat have both turned into Hennlings, the dog into a sheep. Anton Henning and “La Rencontre No 4”, photo Uscha Pohl; above: Das Paradies, 2024, © Anton Henning/VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2025,
photo Jörg von Bruchhausen