The sausage dog has finally been given the museum treatment. The Kunsthalle Bremen in northern Germany has opened "The Dachshund: An Icon off the Leash," which the museum's director Christoph Grunenberg believes is the first exhibition anywhere devoted specifically to dachshunds in art, rather than dogs in general.
The show spans painting, drawing, photography and video, with works by artists who kept, loved or were simply fascinated by the breed — Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and David Hockney among them. There's plenty of lighter material too: shelves of stuffed toy dachshunds, quirky ephemera and a bronze sculpture by German artist Thorsten Brinkmann that puts a handbag on dachshund legs, a cheeky nod to the breed's "handbag dog" reputation. Brinkmann's colourful "Toxie Love" installation fills the first room with playful collectibles of the kind you might find at a grandma's house — one visitor admitted her dog Leo would happily snatch a plush one off the display if given the chance. Objects loaned from the Dachshund Museum in Regensburg add to the mix.
The breed's ties to Germany run deep. Kaiser Wilhelm II kept Dackel, and Britain's Queen Victoria was also a fan, with some of her dogs brought over from Germany. But the exhibition draws from far beyond Bremen, with loans arriving from Edinburgh, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.
The real novelty is that dogs are allowed in. On Thursdays and Saturdays, for several hours at a time, dachshunds and other small dogs can explore three of the museum's eight rooms. There are rules — a maximum shoulder height of 30 centimetres and an online time-slot ticket — plus a "Dachshund Lounge" set up as a waiting area. Grunenberg's pitch is that the dogs should be treated as visitors in their own right: free to wander, sniff, watch videos and peer out the window, which he notes is what dogs actually care about. Finnish photographer Elina Brotherus, whose pictures of her 13-year-old dachshund Marcello feature in the show, got a preview sniff ahead of opening day; Marcello has been her model since 2013.
For travellers, this is a rare excuse to build a city break around a very specific, very charming idea. Bremen itself rewards a weekend: a handsome Hanseatic city with a UNESCO-listed town hall and Roland statue, a fairy-tale quarter and a strong beer tradition. If your dates are flexible and you travel with a small dog, timing a visit to one of the dog-friendly slots turns a standard museum trip into something genuinely memorable — even if, like most owners, you keep a firm grip on the lead near the plush toys.
It's also a good reminder of how much personality one breed can carry through a century of art, from imperial kennels to Pop Art. Whether you own a dachshund or just find their improbable proportions funny, the show makes the case that these dogs have always been more than a punchline.
Story via Daily Sabah Travel.
