On Everyone’s Lips : The Oral in Art and Culture

Mouth, lips, tongue, and teeth—speech, pain, and screech—eating, swallowing, spouting off, and spitting—lust and passion: the oral cavity is an extremely stimulating zone of the body, in the truest sense of the word. Science and medicine are not the only fields that have investigated it, though. From antiquity to the present day, art and cultural history have done the same. The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg has pursued the wide-ranging path of this motif’s history in order to present the first comprehensive show about the mouth in the fall of 2020. The companion publication offers thematically dense essays that not only allow the reader to delve into the topic, but also go far beyond the exhibition itself. The mouth, its inventory and abilities, are closely examined through film history, ethnology, literary theory, and architecture.

The KUNSTMUSEUM WOLFSBURG has been collecting international contemporary art since 1994. With the acquisition of key works of late modernism and important additions from contemporary art, a top-class collection has been built up. Parallel to this, the museum presents an ambitious exhibition program, tracing cultural connections for the public. The exhibition On Everyone’s Lips is curated by UTA RUHKAMP.