Name: Cyrill Lachauer. The Sunset Route
Start: 2026-09-11T12:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-09-11T12:00:00+02:00
Location: Kunstpalais

Cyrill Lachauer at Kunstpalais: On the Trail of the Narrative Landscape

With The Sunset Route, Kunstpalais Erlangen presents an exhibition that combines photography, film, and spatial installation into a dense artistic experience. Cyrill Lachauer explores the idea of the narrative landscape: spaces where history, political reality, social movement, and personal experience become visible.

Between Railway Lines, Migration, and the Desire for Freedom

At the center is a train route over 3,000 kilometers long in the southern USA, representing migratory labor, transit, and a life on the move. Lachauer approaches this motif not as a distant observer but as an artist who has traveled as a train hopper and translates the ambivalence of freedom and vulnerability into poetic sequences of images.

Photography as Material, Film as Narrative Space

The exhibition gathers works from the years 2020 to 2026, including the series Cardboard & Copenhagen and Birds (Nat. Geo. 1989–1999). Disposable camera shots, collages, and short films enter into an open dialogue. This creates a multifaceted examination of the works, where form, rhythm, and fragment merge into a sensitive visual language.

Colonization, Exclusion, and Resistance

Content-wise, the exhibition reaches far beyond simply being on the move. Lachauer addresses questions of colonization, exploitation, self-determination, and resistance. His works conceive of landscape as a cultural repository: a place where historical traces, local living environments, and political conflicts are inscribed.

Curatorial Precision in the Space of Kunstpalais

Kunstpalais presents these works installation-wise, creating an atmosphere of concentrated perception. Series of images, films, and site-specific elements interact, allowing visitors to experience an exhibition that compresses rather than illustrates. This is precisely where its aesthetic experience lies: in seeing, comparing, discovering, and reflecting.

Conclusion

The Sunset Route is an exhibition for all who understand contemporary art as a space of knowledge. It opens up perspectives on landscape as history, on movement as biography, and on photography as a politically charged medium. A visit to Kunstpalais Erlangen is definitely worthwhile, as this exhibition not only shows images but creates a space for thought.