BRUEHL .- The exhibition Headless by Marianna Simnett (b. 1986 in London, lives and works between Berlin and New York) presents, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of seven years of artistic practice. It brings together works from different periods and across a range of media, such as sculpture, video and AI-based works, which are interlinked by a new body of paintings.
The expansive exhibition reveals Marianna Simnett’s close connection to Surrealism through her dreamlike imagery, exploration of the unconscious mind, and rejection of rationality and logic. A world both strange and seductive emerges, inviting viewers into a maze of fractured realities and uncanny encounters.
The title of the exhibition Headless is borrowed from Max Ernst’s first collage novel, La femme 100 têtes (The hundred headless woman, 1929), whose influence resonates throughout the show. A new series of paintings, produced especially for the exhibition, takes direct inspiration from this book, in which Ernst composed a loose sequence of eerie images, often featuring his feathered alter ego, “Loplop”. Marianna Simnett uses this as a starting point to interweave past and present—bringing together current events, mythology, and her own alter egos to form new, hybrid narratives.
Marianna Simnett (b. 1986) is a British-Croatian artist with a multidisciplinary approach who lives and works between Berlin and New York. Her immersive narratives centre around the overlapping and at times incongruous themes of vulnerability, autonomy, control, pain, metamorphosis, and care. Surrealism has long been a prominent influence in Simnett’s practice, recently highlighted by her participation in the 59th Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams (2022).
Curated by Madeleine Frey and Sarah Louisa Henn.
The accompanying catalog Headless, published by Hirmer Publishers, will feature contributions by Cecilia Alemani, Madeleine Frey, Sarah Louisa Henn, and Lisa Tuttle.
Marianna Simnett: Headless is on view from January 31–July 5, 2026 at Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR
