Oscar Murillo transforms DAS MINSK into a living experiment of exchange and visibility

From March to August twenty twenty six, Oscar Murillo will activate every layer of DAS MINSK Kunsthaus, transforming the museum into a site of movement, participation and exchange. Titled Collective Osmosis, the exhibition unfolds as a multi layered meditation on visibility, perception and the political dimensions of art in a globalised world.

The project marks the first collaboration between DAS MINSK and Museum Barberini, with works by Murillo presented across both institutions in dialogue with paintings by Claude Monet from the Hasso Plattner Collection.

Seeing and not seeing

At the heart of Collective Osmosis lies Murillo’s engagement with Monet’s later years, when the French painter suffered from cataracts that altered his perception of colour, form and light. For Murillo, this physical condition becomes an allegory for broader social blind spots and a catalyst for imagining new ways of seeing.

Darkness, in this context, is not absence but potential. Murillo employs it as a speculative space through which to reconsider Impressionism, examining how visibility and invisibility shape power, memory and meaning. His abstract paintings enter into conversation with Monet’s serial works, creating a tension between historical figuration and contemporary abstraction.

Osmosis as metaphor

The exhibition title borrows from science. Osmosis describes the movement of particles through a semi permeable membrane until balance is achieved. Murillo uses this concept to articulate a vision of equality and shared humanity, proposing the museum itself as a porous structure open to its surroundings.

Inside and outside, institution and city, Potsdam and the wider world are brought into dialogue. The museum becomes less a container and more a meeting point, where ideas circulate and boundaries soften.

Participation as practice

Participation is central to Murillo’s work. For him, mark making is an act of freedom and communication, whether carried out by the artist or by others invited into the process. Collective Osmosis foregrounds this belief through a series of participatory projects that invite visitors to contribute directly to the exhibition.

Murillo’s long running Frequencies project, initiated in twenty thirteen, features canvases drawn on by schoolchildren around the world and offers a visual archive of an emerging global language. For this exhibition, new contributions were created by schools across Potsdam and Brandenburg, embedding local voices within a worldwide network.

The ground floor of DAS MINSK focuses on Murillo’s painting processes, including new works from the Scarred Spirits series. Alongside these are participatory works such as Social Mapping and Collective Painting, in which visitors are invited to draw and paint on large scale canvases. From late April, these collective actions will unfold outdoors, extending the exhibition into public space.

Murillo will also launch a nationwide Social Mapping initiative across Germany, with canvases arriving at DAS MINSK throughout the exhibition’s run, reinforcing the idea of the museum as a living, evolving organism.

A dialogue across institutions

At Museum Barberini, Murillo presents a new large scale triptych titled surge (social cataracts) within the collection display of Impressionist painting. Positioned alongside Monet’s works, the piece explores how vision is rehearsed in painting, juxtaposing Monet’s representation with Murillo’s abstraction.

For Murillo, Monet becomes a medium through which paradox is examined. Universal beauty sits alongside personal struggle, light alongside darkness. These tensions inform Murillo’s own painterly language, which seeks meaning in fragmentation, absence and the edges of perception.

A lived experiment

As DAS MINSK director Anna Schneider notes, Murillo’s work challenges both visible and invisible boundaries while opening new possibilities for community building. Collective Osmosis is conceived not as a static exhibition but as a lived experiment that fosters exchange and confronts inequality.

Running from March fourteenth to August ninth twenty twenty six, Collective Osmosis positions art as an active force. One that listens as much as it speaks. One that sees by acknowledging what has been overlooked. And one that reminds us that meaning is not fixed, but formed collectively, through contact, care and shared presence.