Marianna Simnett's Grotesque Fairy Tales at Max Ernst Museum
Marianna Simnett's exhibition 'Headless' at Max Ernst Museum Brühl of the LVR runs through 5 July 2026. The show features films, sculptures, and paintings that blend fairy tales, legends, and body horror. Works include 'Hyena and Swan in the Midst of Sexual Congress' (2019), a sculpture depicting bestial copulation; films 'Leda was a Swan' (2025) and 'Blue Moon' (2022) with AI-assisted visuals; stop-motion 'Prayers for Roadkill' (2022) about taxidermied animals; and live-action 'The Severed Tail' (2022) involving piglet tail docking and BDSM imagery. Simnett focuses on female abjection, transformation, and the animal in the human, drawing on Ovid and Angela Carter. The review notes her preference for disorientation over narrative logic, and describes some paintings as forgettable. The exhibition is reviewed in the April & May 2026 issue of ArtReview.
Key facts
- Marianna Simnett's exhibition 'Headless' is at Max Ernst Museum Brühl of the LVR until 5 July 2026.
- The show includes sculpture 'Hyena and Swan in the Midst of Sexual Congress' (2019).
- Films 'Leda was a Swan' (2025) and 'Blue Moon' (2022) use AI-assisted visuals.
- 'Prayers for Roadkill' (2022) is a stop-motion video about taxidermied animals.
- 'The Severed Tail' (2022) is a live-action short about piglet tail docking and BDSM.
- Simnett's work reimagines fairy tales and legends with feminist subversion.
- The review is by John Christopher Vaughan in ArtReview's April & May 2026 issue.
- Some paintings in the exhibition are described as 'ultimately forgettable'.
Entities
Artists
- Marianna Simnett
- Angela Carter
- David Cronenberg
- Ovid
- Henning Krause
Institutions
- Max Ernst Museum Brühl of the LVR
- ArtReview
- Société Berlin
Locations
- Brühl
- Germany
- Berlin