Everyone knows the cliché of the spy casually observing a target while pretending to read the newspaper. The Canadian artist Rodney Graham uses the classic motif in the form of a light box ad. He played the role of the alleged spy.

Global surveillance needs infrastructure. US activist and photo artist Trevor Paglen specializes in taking photos of secret military bases in remote or restricted areas from several kilometers away. At the Schirn museum, he presents "telephotography" motifs as well as a list of names and codes of secret military programs.

"I'm not holding my breath" — that's what East German artist Cornelia Schleime called her 1982 performance, a critical view of the GDR's surveillance state. After German reunification, she had access to the files the Ministry of State Security, or Stasi, kept on her. Her wry response: "Here's to continued good cooperation."

In 1987, the conservative premier of Germany's northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, Uwe Barschel, resigned after leaks that his office had spied on the Social Democratic rival in the state election. Shortly afterwards, Barschel was found dead in the bathtub of a Geneva hotel, a scene Thomas Demand reconstructed for photographic works.

Simon Denny, an artist from New Zealand, is looking for the interface of design, technology and language in the communication of secret services. First presented at the 2015 Venice Biennale, this installation was part of the "Secret Powers" project. It shows a map of the world: New Zealand is at the center and data streams to the US and Australia.

The investigative conceptual artist Jill Magid got in touch with secret agents for her "Spy Project." She was not allowed to record the conversations, so she took notes by hand and later used some of the key words in neon light installations. The Dutch secret service later censored and confiscated parts of her work.

Noam Toran's seven-minute film "If We Never Meet Again" shows two men meeting on a lonely country road from different angles. The Mexican artist employs typical camera angles from spy films — close-ups, wide-angles and views from above — that are intended to shift the viewers perspective on classic espionage scenes.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was rushed to hospital in Siberia after being taken ill on a flight to Moscow. His aides allege he was poisoned in revenge for his campaigns against corruption. The 44-year-old ex-lawyer apparently only drank black tea before taking off from Omsk airport, which his team think was laced with a toxin that put him in a coma.

In 2018, Russian-Canadian activist Pyotr Verzilov was reported to be in a critical condition after allegedly being poisoned in Moscow. It happened shortly after he gave a TV interview criticizing Russia's legal system. Verzilov, the unofficial spokesman for the rock group Pussy Riot, was transferred to a hospital in Berlin where doctors said it was "highly probable" that he had been poisoned.

Sergei Skripal, a 66-year-old former Russian spy, was found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in the British city of Salisbury after he was exposed to what was later revealed to be the nerve agent Novichok. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the situation "tragic" but said, "We don't have information about what could be the cause" of the incident.

The estranged half-brother of Kim Jong Un was killed on February 13, 2018 at Kuala Lumpur airport after two women allegedly smeared the chemical nerve agent VX on his face. In February, a Malaysian court heard that Kim Jong Nam had been carrying a dozen vials of antidote for the deadly nerve agent VX in his backpack at the time of the poisoning.

Former Russian spy Litvinenko had worked for the Federal Security Service (FSB) before he defected to Britain, where he became a journalist and wrote two books of accusations against the FSB and Putin. He became ill after meeting with two former KGB officers and died on November 23, 2006. A government inquiry found he was killed by radioactive polonium-210 which it alleged the men put in his tea.

In November 2010, doctors at Berlin's Charité hospital discovered high levels of mercury had been found in a Russian dissident couple working in Berlin. Kalashnikov, a freelance journalist and former KGB colonel, had 3.7 micrograms of mercury per litre of blood, while his wife had 56 micrograms. A safe level is 1-3 micrograms. Viktor reportedly told German magazine Focus that "Moscow poisoned us."

Ukrainian opposition leader Yushchenko became sick in September 2004 and was diagnosed with acute pancreatis caused by a viral infection and chemical substances. The illness resulted in facial disfigurement, with pockmarks, bloating and jaundice. Doctors said the changes to his face were from chloracne, which is a result of dioxin poisoning. Yushchenko claimed government agents poisoned him.

On September 25, 1997, Israel's intelligence agency attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Meshaal, under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two agents sprayed a poisonous substance into Meshaal's ear as he walked into the Hamas offices in Amman, Jordan. The assassination attempt was unsuccessful and not long afterward the two Israeli agents were captured.

In 1978, Bulgarian dissident Markov was waiting at a bus stop after a shift at the BBC when he felt a sharp jab in his thigh. He turned to see a man picking up an umbrella. A small bump appeared where he felt the jab and four days later he died. An autopsy found he'd been killed by a small pellet containing a 0.2-milligram dose of ricin. Many believe the poisoned dart was fired from the umbrella.

On December 30, 1916, mystic and spiritual healer Rasputin arrived at Yusupov Palace in St Petersburg at the invitation Prince Felix Yusupov. There, Prince Yusupov offered Rasputin cakes laced with potassium cyanide but he just kept eating them. Yusupov then gave him wine in a cyanide-laced wine glasses, but still Rasputin continued to drink. With the poison failing, Rasputin was shot and killed.