City Lights – Tape Art by Max Zorn
A Museum show at the Museum for Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA, Munich (Germany)
Exhibition Title and Overview
City Lights – Tape Art by Max Zorn was a solo museum exhibition dedicated to Dutch-German tape artist Max Zorn at Munich’s Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA) muca.eu. It was billed as Zorn’s first comprehensive museum show, bringing together his illuminated tape artworks under one thematic title. The exhibition’s name “City Lights” evokes Zorn’s signature subject matter – nocturnal urban scenes – and highlights the interplay of light and shadow fundamental to his art muca.eu. MUCA’s official description noted that Zorn “creates a very unique visual language with a supposedly everyday object: parcel tape,” transforming common brown packing tape into glowing cityscapes and portraits muca.eu. This exhibition marked a milestone for tape art, demonstrating that a street-born medium could command space in a major museum setting.
Dates and Location
City Lights ran from 21 October 2022 until 10 September 2023 muca.eu. It was installed in the MUCA Art Bunker, a WWII-era concrete bunker adjacent to MUCA’s main building at Hotterstraße 12 in central Munich muca.eu. The choice of venue was deliberate: the bunker’s dark, cavernous interior provided an ideal atmosphere for Zorn’s backlit tape works. Visitors entered in small groups as access was only possible via guided tours of the bunker galleries muca.eu. (Unlike MUCA’s street-level halls, the bunker is not freely accessible or fully barrier-free, due to its historic architecturemuca.eu.) City Lights indeed occupied this entire bunker venue, rather than MUCA’s main above-ground galleriesmaxzorn.com.
Artworks Exhibited (Number and Types)
City Lights featured over 25 artworks by Max Zorn, making it the largest collection of his works ever assembled in one exhibition. All pieces were examples of Zorn’s “tape art”: intricately layered compositions made from translucent brown packing tape on acrylic glass, illuminated from behind. These ranged from early, smaller tape portraits originally created for street lamps, to recent large-scale lightbox scenes several feet across. MUCA described the show as “the most comprehensive collection of Max Zorn’s art to date,” effectively a mid-career retrospective spanning the artist’s output since 2011. Works were on loan from private collections around the world, supplemented by a few new pieces Zorn created on commission for the museum. Because Zorn’s tape tableaux are highly sought-after (his limited originals have been “sold out for years” in the market muca.eu), assembling 25+ works was a curatorial challenge. MUCA noted it was “the first exhibition of its kind” to unite such a breadth of Zorn’s art from different creative phases muca.eu. The exhibited artworks were uniformly presented on light panels or lightboxes, allowing visitors to appreciate the sepia-toned detail that emerges when Zorn’s tape layers are backlit. Subjects included moody city street scenes, film noir-style characters, and urban nightlife vignettes, all rendered in the warm glow characteristic of Zorn’s packing tape technique.
Theme and Curatorial Framing
MUCA’s curatorial team positioned City Lights as a celebration of Zorn’s storytelling through urban light. The title refers to city lights at night, an essential motif in Zorn’s work. Many of his tape pieces depict figures against illuminated city backdrops – from shimmering skyscraper skylines to the neon glow of street lamps and speakeasy bars muca.eu. The museum’s exhibition text explained that Zorn searches for “emotionally significant moments, often intensified by the juxtaposition of an individual person and an overwhelming environment. It is above all the cities that serve as Zorn’s stage here.” muca.eu In other words, the show’s theme was the contrast between intimacy and anonymity in the urban night, a duality that Zorn explores by literally painting with light in darkness.
Max Zorn himself articulated this theme in the exhibition press materials, saying: “Nicht nur hat meine Kunst ihre Anfänge an den Straßenlichtern von Amsterdam gefunden. Ich entfalte meine Geschichten auch oft vor der Kulisse nächtlicher Skylines. … Diese Gleichzeitigkeit von Intimität und Anonymität bildet das perfekte Ambiente für die inneren Auseinandersetzungen meiner Protagonisten.”(Translation: “Not only did my art find its beginnings under the street lights of Amsterdam. I also often unfold my stories against the backdrop of night skylines. From shimmering skyscrapers to the smoldering cigarettes in dark speakeasy bars, behind every light is a life full of longing and challenges. And all of this coming together – sometimes fleetingly, sometimes on a collision course – this simultaneity of intimacy and anonymity creates the perfect ambience for the inner struggles of my protagonists.”muca.eu)*. This poetic statement by Zorn was prominently featured to frame the exhibition’s narrative. It underscores how artificial light (street lamps, city windows, neon signs) becomes a metaphorical spotlight on human hopes and conflicts in Zorn’s art.
Installation and Exhibition Design
The exhibition design took full advantage of the MUCA Bunker’s unique environment. The bunker is an austere concrete structure (a repurposed WWII air-raid bunker) with multiple subterranean levels. City Lights occupied three levels of the bunker, each filled with Zorn’s illuminated tape artworks mounted on light panels. The lighting was kept low throughout the space to enhance the impact of each piece: visitors navigated dim corridors and rooms where the only radiance came from the artworks themselves glowing in the dark. This created an immersive, almost cinematic atmosphere in which the tape portraits and cityscapes appeared like windows into nocturnal city life. In essence, the installation juxtaposed an underground, rough industrial venue with the delicate, luminous quality of Zorn’s art, reinforcing the theme of finding beauty in unlikely places.
Because of the bunker’s confined layout, the museum limited entry to guided tours scheduled at specific times muca.eu. Groups were led through each level by a guide who provided context on Zorn’s techniques and the stories behind the works (MUCA staff and docents, sometimes even the artist himself at special events). This tour format not only managed crowd flow in the tight bunker corridors, but also gave visitors a focused viewing experience – often with lights switched off and then gradually turned on behind each artwork to demonstrate how the images “come alive” with illumination. The MUCA Bunker’s concrete walls were left mostly bare, accentuating the contrast between the gray utilitarian space and the rich sepia tones emanating from Zorn’s lightboxes. In some sections, the exhibition design echoed an urban ambiance: for example, a cluster of works was displayed at varying heights as if along a street skyline, and one could imagine the effect as walking through a city at night with lit windows around muca.eu muca.eu. Overall, the installation was described as “genial” (ingeniously done) by local guides, who noted how the setting heightened the drama of Zorn’s art lust-auf-muenchen.com. The careful staging underscored the curatorial message – that tape art, which began on city lamp posts, had been given a literal underground spotlight in a museum, bridging street culture and high art.
Public Reception and Notable Outcomes
City Lights received an enthusiastic public response in Munich. The vernissage (opening) on 21–22 October 2022 was completely booked out, with all tickets for the opening weekend claimed well in advance. The artist Max Zorn was in attendance at the vernissage, even doing a live taping demonstration for attendees (applying tape with a scalpel in person) according to museum social media posts instagram.com. The strong interest led MUCA to offer additional guided tours and to encourage advance registrations for visits.
Originally, City Lights was slated to run for several months into early 2023. High visitor turnout and continued demand prompted the museum to extend the exhibition. In March 2023, MUCA announced that City Lights would be prolonged until 10 September 2023, to remain on view through the summer travel season muca.eu. This extension aligned with the extension of another MUCA show (“25 Years” in the main building), effectively keeping Zorn’s exhibition open nearly a full year. “Until the end of the Bavarian summer holidays, everyone still has the opportunity to enjoy (once again) the current artworks in the MUCA and adjacent bunker,” MUCA stated in its extension press release muca.eu. By the close of its run in September, City Lights had achieved status as one of MUCA’s most successful special exhibitions m.facebook.com. While exact attendance figures were not published, the need for guided tour slots to be increased and the long run time suggest thousands of visitors experienced the exhibition. Zorn himself remarked in interviews that he was thrilled to see a museum-scale audience engaging with tape art, which validated the years he spent developing the medium.
Critically, City Lights was regarded as a landmark for the artist. MUCA’s directors noted that assembling the show had been difficult (given most works were in private hands), but that its success demonstrated a maturing acceptance of urban contemporary art in institutional spaces. Following City Lights, MUCA immediately hosted high-profile exhibits by internationally renowned artists (Damien Hirst in late 2023, and Banksy in early 2025). For Max Zorn’s career, City Lights was a major legitimizing moment: it positioned him as a museum-caliber artist. In sum, public reception was not only numerically strong but also marked by a sense that attendees were witnessing a turning point for tape art, an impression reflected in many guided tour feedbacks and media mentions during the run.
Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art
Hotterstrasse 12
80331 München
Germany
City Lights – Die Ausstellung:
Eröffnung: 21./22. Oktober
Laufzeit: 2022 / 2023
Zorns Werke sind seit Jahren ausverkauft und so war es eine Herausforderung eine umfangreiche Sammlung zusammenzutragen. „City Lights“ ist die erste Ausstellung dieser Art, die Leihgaben und Auftragswerke des Künstlers aus verschiedenen Schaffensphasen zusammenbringt und auf drei Etagen im MUCA-Bunker präsentiert.
Die Kollektion erspürt die Suche des Künstlers nach emotional bedeutsamen Momenten. Oft verstärkt durch die Gegenüberstellung der einzelnen Person und einer überwältigenden Umgebung. Es sind vor allem die Städte, die Zorn hier als Bühne dienen.
Max Zorn about the exhibition: „Nicht nur hat meine Kunst ihre Anfänge an den Straßen-Lichtern von Amsterdam gefunden. Ich entfalte meine Geschichten auch oft vor der Kulisse nächtlicher Skylines. Von schimmernden Wolkenkratzern bis zu den glimmenden Zigaretten in dunklen Speak-Easy-Bars, hinter jedem Licht steckt ein Leben voller Sehnsucht und Herausforderungen. Und all dies berührt sich, manchmal flüchtig, manchmal im Kollisionskurs. Diese Gleichzeitigkeit von Intimität und Anonymität bildet das perfekte Ambiente für die inneren Auseinandersetzungen meiner Protagonisten.“
MUCA: Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art
Nach einjähriger Umbauphase entstand 2016 im ehemaligen Umspannwerk der Stadtwerke München das heutige MUCA – Deutschlands erstes Museum für Urban Art.
Gegründet durch die beiden Kunstliebhaber und Ehepartner Stephanie und Christian Utz, setzt das MUCA als Privatmuseum höchste Maxime, Urban Art in den zeitgenössischen Kunstdiskurs einzufügen und diese aufstrebende Kunstform zu musealisieren. Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf der hauseigenen Sammlung, die inzwischen zu einer der größten Europas im Bereich Urban Art zählt.
Das MUCA versteht sich als Begegnungsstätte für Urban und Contemporary Art und besticht durch eine hochkarätige Ausstellungsprogrammatik. Auf drei Etagen sowie im angrenzenden MUCA Bunker, sind in wechselnden Sonderausstellungen aber auch im Rahmen der “Permanent Collection” die Werke renommierter, international gefeierter Künstler*innen zu sehen.
Archive: MUCA solo museum exhibition
Title of the exhibition: City Lights – Tape Art Max Zorn
Location In the MUCA bunker
Time period: 21.10.2022 – 10.09.2023
Original Source: https://www.muca.eu/en/exhibition/city-lights-tape-art-max-zorn/
Original Text at MUCA: (Wayback-Machine)
City Lights – the new exhibition by Max Zorn
Tape Art by Max Zorn
Street art has long since emancipated itself as an art form in its own right, which can now be clearly seen in the artists who use different media and forms of expression and thus continue to develop this art form more and more. The Dutch artist Max Zorn creates a very unique visual language with a supposedly everyday object: parcel tape.
The brown tape, familiar to everyone, allows Max Zorn to illuminate independent visual worlds.
The artist developed these “Tape Art” in Amsterdam, where he attached his atmospheric portraits to street lamps, in whose light the pictures unfolded their magical effect at night.
In tandem with the developing technique, increasingly complex, large-scale works emerged, which can now be admired in renowned galleries and at the world’s major art fairs.
City Lights – the exhibition in the MUCA Bunker
Zorn’s works have been sold out for years and so it was a challenge to assemble an extensive collection. “City Lights” is the first exhibition of its kind to bring together loans and commissioned works by the artist from different creative phases.
It senses the artist’s search for emotionally significant moments. Often intensified by the juxtaposition of the individual person and an overwhelming environment. It is above all the cities that serve as Zorn’s stage here.
“Not only did my art find its beginnings at the street lights of Amsterdam. I also often unfold my stories against the backdrop of night skylines. From shimmering skyscrapers to the smouldering cigarettes in dark Speak Easy bars, behind every light is a life full of longing and challenges. And all of this touches, sometimes fleetingly, sometimes on a collision course. This simultaneity of intimacy and anonymity creates the perfect ambience for the inner struggles of my protagonists,” says Zorn.
