Pictura Montréal Leipzig

Pictura is pleased to announce Pictura Montréal–Leipzig, a major international group exhibition uniting Canadian and German painters within the 10,000-square-foot Werkschauhalle at Leipzig's renowned Spinnerei complex. Co-curated by Pictura founder Trevor Kiernander and German curator Sophia Pietryga, the exhibition runs from July 17 to August 10, 2026.

Situated in a city long synonymous with ambitious painting culture, Pictura Montréal–Leipzig brings Montréal's dynamic, multilingual, and experimentally oriented painting community into direct conversation with Leipzig's internationally recognised tradition of studio-intensive, materially engaged practice. Together, the participating artists explore how distinct cultural, historical, and pedagogical environments continue to shape the concerns and possibilities of contemporary painting.

The exhibition reflects a decade of relationship-building between Trevor Kiernander and Leipzig's artistic community — rooted in residencies at the Spinnerei beginning in 2017, and deepened through print projects, studio exchanges, and ongoing dialogue with artists, curators, and gallerists.

The Spinnerei — once the largest cotton mill on the European continent and now home to over one hundred artists' studios and a constellation of major galleries — offers an extraordinary setting for the exchange. Its Werkschauhalle provides both the physical scale and the institutional context to present Canadian painting at international standards.

Alongside the exhibition, invited artists will take part in talks, moderated discussions, and studio visits, deepening reciprocal understanding between the two cities and laying groundwork for future collaborations, including residencies, touring projects, and a reciprocal exhibition in Montréal.

Pictura Montréal–Leipzig marks a pivotal moment for Pictura as a recently incorporated non-profit, coinciding with the preparation of its third and most ambitious Montréal edition in autumn 2026. The project strengthens Canadian–German cultural ties, supports the international mobility and visibility of Montréal-based painters, and positions Montréal within a broader global conversation on the vitality and continued evolution of painting as a medium.

Artists: Pardiss Amerian, David Blatherwick, Adrian Buschmann, Sebastian Burger, Véronique Chagnon Côté, Nicole Crozier, Clovis-Alexandre Desvarieux, James Gardner, Anaïs Goupy, Samuelle Grande, Dil Hildebrand, Franziska Holstein, Franz Jyrch, Trevor Kiernander, Benjamin Klein, Uta Koslik, Élise Lafontaine, David Lafrance, Corinne von Lebusa, Myriam Mayer, Malik McKoy, Rebecca Munce, Erik Nieminen, Gudrun Petersdorff, Alberto Porro, Shamin Radmand, Lars Anker Rasmussen, Christoph Roßner, Maria Schumacher, Josefine Schulz, Matt Schust, Joseph Siddiqi, Cameron Skene, Claus Georg Stabe, Stefan Stößel, Mégane Voghell, Matthias Weischer