A groundbreaking exhibition titled "Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly" will run from October 3, 2025, through January 11, 2026, shedding new light on one of the most influential yet often overlooked artistic networks in post-war America. While each of these artists has achieved individual recognition, their profound mutual influences and complex web of artistic, personal, and romantic relationships have remained largely unexplored until now.

The exhibition tells the story of five successful artists who played crucial roles in post-war art through their interdisciplinary work, making decisive contributions to the history of art, music, and dance. Both individually and collectively, these artists continue to influence generations of contemporary artists. The show focuses particularly on what it meant to be a gay artist in the 1950s, casting new light on the dynamics of post-war art in the United States and beyond.

For the first time, a major exhibition will examine John Cage's theoretical influence on Rauschenberg and Twombly, the stage designs created by Rauschenberg and Johns for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and the formal and thematic dialogues between Twombly, Rauschenberg, and Johns. The performative and collaborative dimensions of their practices reflect their shared cultural vision of a non-hierarchical, multipolar, and anti-imperialist society.

The exhibition reveals not only the intellectual and political affinities among the five artists but also the remarkably strong formal and material similarities between musical scores, drawings, paintings, choreographies, and kinetic sculptures. Artworks created in the same studios will enter into dialogue for the first time in a museum space, making the exchange between the artists tangible and visible to visitors.

Key works featured include Robert Rauschenberg's "Bed" (1955), created with oil and graphite on pillow, quilt, and sheet mounted on wood supports measuring 191.1 × 80 × 20.3 cm. Jasper Johns' "Flag on Orange Field" (1957), executed in encaustic on canvas measuring 167.6 × 124.5 cm, demonstrates his iconic approach to American symbols. Johns' "Painted Bronze/Ale Cans" (1960), a painted bronze sculpture measuring 14 × 20.3 × 12 cm, exemplifies his transformation of everyday objects into art.

Cy Twombly's monumental "Vengeance of Achilles" (1962), oil and graphite on canvas measuring 300 × 175 cm, represents his distinctive gestural style, while his "Natural History Part 1 Mushrooms" (1974) portfolio features four lithographic sheets each measuring 64 × 55.5 cm. Rauschenberg's "Axle" (1964), a four-part work using oil and silkscreen ink on canvas measuring 274 × 610 cm, showcases his innovative combine technique.

Photographic documentation provides intimate glimpses into their relationships, including images of Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg in Rome around 1961, Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns at Louis and France Stevenson's house in New York in 1954, and a particularly touching photograph of Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly at Staten Island beach around 1951, likely printed at a drugstore or similar film lab.

The collaborative spirit extends to performance works, with Rauschenberg's set design for Merce Cunningham's "Minutiae" (1976, after the original combine from 1954) constructed from oil, paper, fabric, newspaper, wood, metal, plastic, mirrors, and string on a wooden framework measuring 214.6 × 205.7 × 77.5 cm. This piece exemplifies the cross-pollination between visual art and dance that characterized their circle.

In cooperation with music and dance ensembles, works by Cage and Cunningham will be newly staged within the exhibition, anchoring them in the present moment. The show demonstrates how these five artists shared studios, ideas, and creative processes, fundamentally changing the landscape of American art in the post-war period.

The exhibition is curated by Yilmaz Dziewior and Achim Hochdörfer, working with Arthur Fink, Kerstin Renerig, and Leonore Spemann, in cooperation with Museum Brandhorst in Munich. Major support comes from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Cy Twombly Foundation, with additional generous support from multiple cultural institutions and corporate partners including REWE Group and Russmedia as Superior Partners.