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Karl Lagerfeld passed away at the beginning of the year. The legendary fashion designer’s indescribable creativity and his extravagant lifestyle touched and influenced people around the globe up until the very end. From 21 November 2019 to 6 January 2020, the Oetker Collection and curator Kiki Kausch will be presenting a fascinating exhibition in Baden-Baden’s Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in honour of ‘Karl Cool’. During a week-long process, prominent artists used light, granite, canvas, photographs and bronze to create works especially for this event as a personal tribute to Karl Lagerfeld.

Among the exhibitors are renowned contemporary artist Gregor Hildebrandt, top international graffiti artist MadC, world-renowned light artist Susanne Rottenbacher, and Berlin’s photo artist Kiki Kausch, whose first work was in fact a portrait of Lagerfeld.

‘Karl the Great’ left behind a rich treasure of artworks, collector’s items and photographs including little-known images for Rolls Royce that are being made available for the exhibition for the first time by publisher and Lagerfeld confidant Gerhard Steidl.

An extract of the Karl Cool tribute will go on display at Le Bristol Paris at the start of 2020. The Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc will also show Karl Lagerfeld’s signed, 14-part Rolls Royce series from 16 April to 16 May 2020.

Guest of the Oetker Collection have the exclusive opportunity to purchase the works. The prices range between €5000 and €33,000.

The main opening event in Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa will take place on Wednesday 20 November at 5pm. The artists will be present and will be available for interview. At 5.30pm, Alfons Kaiser (FAZ newspaper) will host a talk with two close friends of Lagerfeld, Patricia Riekel and Gerhard Steidl.

Frank Marrenbach, CEO of the Oetker Collection: “Our hotels are places of interchange. Creating space for unplanned encounters with contemporary art is also important to us. Now we are taking the next step. Artworks can for the first time be experienced on our premises before appearing at exhibitions or galleries. Not only are the artists placing their confidence in us but are presenting us with this magical moment.”

Kiki Kausch, photo artist and curator of the exhibition: “My encounter with Karl Lagerfeld was by chance and occurred at the start of my career as a photo artist. Our aim here is to define art in hotels in a new way – moving away from decoration to art premieres – and increasing the focus on the artist as part of the deal.”

Gerhard Steidl: “Fashion was of course the subject of his professional photographs. We used the term ‘private photographs’ for anything else. These were portraits of people whom he liked as well as abstractions, architecture and landscapes. Of all these photographic worlds it was the abstractions that I liked best.”

Karl Cool – a personal tribute by prominent artists to the great Karl Lagerfeld – from 21 November 2019 to 6 January 2020 in Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden.