Böse Blumen / Evil Flowers

The title Böse Blumen  is inspired by the famous poetry volume Les Fleurs du mal (“The Flowers of Evil”) by Charles Baudelaire (1857), a cornerstone of Symbolist aesthetics. In this collection of poems, Baudelaire transformed flowers into metaphors of decadence, eroticism, and existential anxiety. The exhibition builds on this literary heritage, showing how visual artists adopted and reinterpreted the imagery of “evil flowers” to explore themes of beauty, corruption, transience, and forbidden desire.

This richly illustrated exhibition catalog explores the motif of the “evil flower” in art, literature, and cultural history, tracing its symbolism from the fin‑de‑siècle through modern and contemporary interpretations. The volume presents masterpieces from the museum’s collections alongside loans from international institutions, highlighting how artists have used floral imagery to express themes of beauty, decadence, mortality, and desire. By juxtaposing Symbolist works with modern and contemporary art, the catalog reveals how the “evil flower” became a recurring motif in cultural imagination, bridging the 19th century with today’s artistic explorations.

Edited by leading curators and scholars, the book includes essays, detailed catalogue entries, and high‑quality reproductions.