Exploring Cinema through the Perspective of Getting Misplaced or Being Disoriented, as Advocated by Wim Wenders
Celebrating the Lyrical Vision of Wim Wenders: A Retrospective Exhibition
As German filmmaker Wim Wenders turns 80 in August 2023, the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, Germany is presenting a major retrospective exhibition of his work. The exhibition, titled "Wim Wenders: A Retrospective," explores key recurring themes in his work such as road movies, discovery, emotional transit, longing for connection, and redemption.
Wenders is renowned for his road movie trilogy—The Wrong Move, Alice in the Cities, and Kings of the Road—which center on characters in physical and emotional transit, searching for meaning and connection. These motifs reached artistic maturity in Paris, Texas, a film about loss and reconciliation set against the American Southwest’s vast landscapes.
Another central theme is the metaphor of angels as representations of inner goodness and humanity, most notably in Wings of Desire and its sequel Faraway, So Close, where angels observe and interact with human life.
The exhibition includes retrospectives of his major films across five decades, illustrating his evolving style and thematic concerns such as solitude, memory, sacredness in everyday life, and historical reflection. For example, his 2023 film Perfect Days explores joy and solitude through the lens of simple daily routines in Tokyo, representing his ongoing interest in the sacredness of mundane life.
Wenders' international reputation was cemented by "Paris, Texas" (1984), a haunting exploration of loss and redemption set in the American Southwest. "Wings of Desire" (1987) is a film by Wenders that features angels and was reportedly an inspiration for the 1998 Meg Ryan-Nicholas Cage film "City of Angels."
Wenders grew up in a city almost entirely reduced to rubble. Born in Duesseldorf near the end of World War II, Wenders' childhood yearning to explore laid the foundation for a creative career spanning continents and genres.
His films frequently depict emptiness, stillness, and the dignity of space, captured visually both through cinema and his photography. Wenders’s photographic work complements his cinematic vision—capturing haunting and evocative images like neon motel signs or vast desert skies—conveying a deep sense of place and atmosphere.
The exhibition also highlights his prolific career as a photographer, known for stark images of abandoned spaces, overlooked corners, and long, silent roads. Wenders has traveled extensively, including trips to China and India, but has not yet visited Patagonia, Antarctica, or the North Pole.
Overall, the exhibition presents Wenders's lyrical eye and poetic treatment of travel, memory, and human longing, conveyed through both his films and photographic works, while somewhat sidestepping political aspects of his oeuvre. It invites viewers to experience his artistic journey through vast landscapes, intimate human stories, and a celebration of seeing and remembering.
Key highlights covered in the exhibition include:
- The importance of the road as metaphor and narrative device (road movies trilogy and Paris, Texas)
- The role of light and place, especially the American West, in shaping atmosphere and mood
- Photography as a parallel artistic practice capturing desolation and stillness
- The theme of angels as human metaphors for hope and loss (Wings of Desire)
- His ongoing exploration of solitude, daily life, and existential questions in recent films like Perfect Days
Thus, the retrospective is a comprehensive survey of Wenders’s multifaceted contributions to film and photography, framed by his poetic sensibility and humanistic concerns.
- The retrospective exhibition on Wim Wenders, scheduled in Bonn, Germany, will showcase his work spanning five decades, showcasing his evolving style and thematic concerns like solitude, memory, and sacredness in everyday life.
- Wenders' international reputation was cemented by his film "Paris, Texas," a haunting exploration of loss and redemption, which reached a wider audience in the West.
- Wenders' prolific career as a photographer is also represented in the exhibition, featuring stark images of abandoned spaces, overlooked corners, and long, silent roads.
- The exhibition will explore Wenders' fascination with the American West and the role of light and place in shaping atmosphere and mood, having reached artistic maturity in films like "Paris, Texas."
- Wenders' films often depict empty spaces, stillness, and the dignity of space, visually capturing this through both cinema and his photography, showing his lyrical eye and poetic treatment of travel, memory, and human longing.
