Rosa von Praunheim celebrated his 80th birthday in November 2022. This is the occasion for an exhibition dedicated to the drawings and paintings of the well-known director, author and activist. Before the artist, who grew up in Frankfurt-Praunheim, turned to film, his artistic training took him to the Werkkunstschule Offenbach (now the Hochschule für Gestaltung) and the Hochschule für bildende Künste (now the UdK) in West Berlin.

After the much-visited exhibition in the rooms of our predecessor gallery Frankfurter Kunstkabinett in 2014, Rosa von Praunheim's colorful visual worlds are returning to Frankfurt. These are populated by flowers, animal creatures, dancing and flying bodies, sometimes supplemented by words, poems and prose. The multi-talented artist creates a childlike, imaginative idyll of lasting youthful freshness with reminiscences of pop art. In the eponymous work "Merci for your love", the artist obviously refers to the myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with himself instead of giving his love to others. His fate, his transformation into a flower, is already foreshadowed. But leaving Ovid and the Metamorphoses behind, von Praunheim locates the story of self-love and counter-love in starry outer space.

Rosa von Praunheim has been painting since his earliest youth. His career in the visual arts began with his studies in Offenbach and West Berlin. He is best known for the documentary film "It's not the homosexual who is perverted, but the situation in which he lives" (1971). He is considered one of the co-founders of the political gay and lesbian movement in Germany. Von Praunheim has been a member of the Akademie der Künste since 2009, in the Film and Media Art section, which he chaired as director from May 2015 to May 2018. He is also a member of the German Film Academy and the European Film Academy.