HERFORD.- From February 7 to June 7, 2026, Museum Marta Herford becomes a space in motion. With Cartographies of Growth, the museum presents a rare and poetic double exhibition bringing together the work of Lois Weinberger (1947–2020) and Katinka Bock (born 1976). Rather than offering a static display, the exhibition unfolds as a living process—one shaped by water, plants, materials, and time itself.

At the heart of the show is a shared fascination with forces that resist human control. Plants break through asphalt, copper reacts to air and rain, water follows its own rhythm. These are the kinds of phenomena we often dismiss as interruptions or disorder in everyday life. Here, they become the protagonists.

The exhibition is conceived as a dialogue. Weinberger and Bock work in different media and come from different generations, yet both approach the world with a similar attentiveness: observing growth, decay, movement, and the subtle traces left behind by natural and physical processes. Their works blur the boundaries between nature and culture, between what we choose to notice and what we usually overlook.

Lois Weinberger: giving voice to the overlooked

Lois Weinberger is widely regarded as a pioneer of ecologically engaged art. Throughout his career, he focused on plants—especially so-called “ruderal plants,” commonly dismissed as weeds. Rather than controlling or arranging them, Weinberger allowed these plants to grow on their own terms, granting them agency within his work.

One of the most striking works in the exhibition, Portable Garden (1996/2026), is installed outside the museum on Goebenstraße. Checkered plastic bags filled with soil are scattered across the space. Over the months, seeds already present in the earth—or carried by the wind—will sprout and form their own spontaneous vegetation. Weinberger described this idea as a “ruderal society,” a quiet metaphor for migration, coexistence, and the interconnected movement of plants, people, and cultures. The bags themselves, often associated with migration, underline this connection.

Inside the museum, Weinberger’s monumental wall drawing Wege (2005/2026) transforms the feeding tunnels of bark beetles into an expansive red network painted directly onto the curving walls of the Gehry-designed interior. Enlarged and intentionally irregular, the drawing turns a hidden natural process into a visible system of paths. Human and insect share authorship here, working—unknowingly—together.

Another key work, Debris Field (2010–2016), brings together nearly 1,000 objects collected around Weinberger’s family farm in Tyrol: tools, clothing, handwritten notes, religious items, even mummified animals. First shown at documenta 14, the work reads like an archaeological archive of everyday life, tracing an unwritten local history from the 14th to the 20th century.

The presentation of Weinberger’s works at Marta Herford was realized in close collaboration with Franziska Weinberger, the artist’s wife and an art historian who worked alongside him for many years. Her involvement ensures that the installations remain faithful to his intentions.

A broader view of Weinberger’s practice is offered through the documentary Lois Weinberger – Ruderal Society, directed by Markus Heltschl. First shown at the Viennale in 2025, the film appears in excerpts throughout the exhibition and will be screened in full on selected dates.

Katinka Bock: when materials tell their own story

Where Weinberger looks closely at plants and ecosystems, Katinka Bock turns her attention to materials and their behavior over time. Copper, clay, wood, stone, and bronze form the basis of her sculptural language. Rather than forcing these materials into fixed shapes, Bock allows them to bend, oxidize, stain, or erode—embracing chance as part of the creative process.

A central new work in the exhibition, One of Hundred (Segments with Unknown Radius) (2026), was created with the participation of the museum’s circle of supporters. One hundred copper plates were distributed to private homes and gardens, where they were exposed to weather and everyday environments. The marks left behind—by rain, air, oxidation—now form the surface of a circular floor sculpture. The result is a kind of “social sculpture,” shaped collectively and beyond the artist’s direct control.

Another newly commissioned work, Population Churchill (2026), connects directly to the building of Marta Herford itself. Based on research into an old sewing machine model named “Churchill,” the machine was dismantled and its parts cast in bronze. These elements are arranged on metal workbenches, echoing the site’s history: before becoming a museum, part of the building housed textile production.

A visible copper pipe links the sculpture to the museum’s water system. At regular intervals, water drips into the installation, marking time through sound and movement. Over the course of the exhibition, these droplets will leave their own traces on the floor—quietly inscribing the work into the fabric of the building.

An exhibition that changes with time

Cartographies of Growth is not an exhibition to be seen once and left behind. It evolves. Plants grow outside the museum. Water spreads and leaves marks inside. Materials darken, stain, and transform. In doing so, the show challenges the idea of the museum as a place of preservation and control.

Instead, Marta Herford becomes a porous space—open to natural processes and to the city around it. Weinberger and Bock invite visitors to slow down, to observe carefully, and to reconsider their relationship with nature, material, and time. What emerges is an exhibition that feels less like a finished statement and more like a living organism—one that continues to change long after the doors open.