Oscar Murillo at DAS MINSK: When the Artwork Refuses to Belong to One Author

At DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam, the open-air programme accompanying Collective Osmosis by Oscar Murillo shifts the exhibition away from the static and into something more unstable, more collective. Beginning on April 25, 2026, the museum’s terrace becomes an active site of production, where the boundaries between artist, audience, and artwork begin to dissolve.

Murillo’s practice has long resisted the idea of the singular author. Here, that resistance is made physical.

The Collective Painting programme invites visitors to contribute directly to a large-scale work that evolves over the course of the exhibition. There is no fixed composition, no final image waiting to be revealed. Instead, the painting accumulates gestures, marks, and interruptions. It becomes a record of presence rather than intention.

What matters is not what is painted, but that it is painted.

This approach draws from a lineage of participatory practices, particularly within Latin American art history, where collective making has often functioned as a form of social and political engagement. The opening event, which includes a conversation with curator Raphael Fonseca, situates Murillo’s work within this context, framing participation not as novelty, but as continuity.

The presence of Gabriel Chaile’s sculptural oven, activated during the opening, reinforces this atmosphere. It introduces a different kind of gathering, one rooted in ritual, sustenance, and shared time. The artwork extends beyond the visual, into the social.

Running parallel to this is Murillo’s ongoing Social Mapping project, which forms the foundation of the terrace installation. Canvases produced through drawing sessions across Germany arrive at DAS MINSK already marked, already carrying traces of other places and communities. These surfaces are then reworked through collective painting, layering local gestures onto a broader network of participation.

The museum becomes a point of convergence.

Institutions ranging from Museum Barberini to Kunsthalle Bremen and SAVVY Contemporary contribute to this process, extending the exhibition beyond Potsdam into a distributed, national framework. What is produced is not a single artwork, but a system of exchange.

This emphasis on circulation continues through the wider programme. A guided tour led by curator Amanda Carneiro places Murillo’s work within a South American context, while an artist talk with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung opens the practice to critical reflection. These moments do not explain the work. They expand it.

What emerges from this programme is a redefinition of what an exhibition can be. The artwork is not confined to the gallery space, nor is it complete upon installation. It exists in a state of ongoing formation, shaped by those who encounter it.

In this sense, Collective Osmosis is not simply about participation. It is about permeability. Between individuals, between institutions, between contexts.

At DAS MINSK, the painting does not belong to Murillo alone. It belongs to the process that produces it.