Nervous Breakdown: Raymond Pettibon Exhibition

26.4.2026–20.9.2026
Nervous Breakdown: Raymond Pettibon

Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany

The American artist Raymond Pettibon is regarded as a subtle chronicler of the present, whose drawings explore the defining visual worlds and narratives of the 20th and 21st centuries. In doing so, he draws from a wide range of sources—from literature, art history, popular culture, and religion to politics and sports; Woodstock and the “Summer of Love,” baseball and surfing, racism, drugs, and double standards, as well as the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, are recurring are recurring themes and motifs. In his visual worlds—inspired in equal measure by comics and the traditions of satire and social criticism from the 18th and 19th centuries—image and text merge in a manner that is both poetic and critical, offering a ruthless assessment of the American Dream.

Pettibon’s career began in the Los Angeles punk rock scene of the late 1970s, when bands like Black Flag and the Minutemen used his drawings for album covers and flyers. Covers such as the one for Sonic Youth’s album Goo (1990) are considered pop-cultural icons, but his own vinyl projects as a musician or producer also attest to his deep connection to the contemporary music scene. To this day, artistic collaborations with musicians remain a recurring theme in his work.

With over 200 exhibits, all on loan from the Stefan Thull Collection, the exhibition at the Wilhelm Hack Museum comprehensively showcases this original strand of his artistic oeuvre for the first time. On display are not only records in their various formats—LPs, maxi singles, and singles—but also CDs, music cassettes, and DVDs from 1979 to the present. The exhibition is complemented by flyers and fanzines.