Schmela Haus: Aldo van Eyck, Nils Norman and Yto Barrada
The playground as an urban, aesthetic, and political space forms the focus of the exhibition "Das Kind, die Stadt und die Kunst" (The Child, the City, and the Art), which is on view at the Schmela Haus of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen until 15 September. The show’s point of departure is the oeuvre of Dutch architectural visionary Aldo van Eyck (1918–1999), who realized 700 playgrounds in Amsterdam between 1947 and 1978. Van Eyck was one of the first architects to explicitly integrate the perspectives of children into his aspirations toward the socially conscious reconfiguration and redesign of urban space. Juxtaposed against the historic presentation of plans and designs by this architect are artworks by Nils Norman and Yto Barrada which thematize the playground as a place of community and of transformation from a contemporary perspective.
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"Sculptors at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1945 to the Present" at K20
Since 1945, students and teachers of sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy – with its rich tradition – have been responsible for decisive and highly influential artistic impulses. Through their classes and beyond, professors such as Ewald Mataré, Joseph Beuys, Fritz Schwegler, Rosemarie Trockel, Hubert Kiecol, Thomas Schütte, and Katharina Fritsch have shaped productive discussion and debate at the Academy, while at the same time making fundamental contributions to the art of sculpture. Anthony Cragg – who is a professor and rector at the Academy – is curating this exhibition from an insider’s perspective: with works by approximately 50 participating artists, he will present an impressive panorama of contemporary sculpture. Rendered comprehensible with singular incisiveness will be the myriad ways in which artistic ideas emerge and are transformed, thereby generating novelty.
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Wolfgang Tillmans at K21
In cooperation with the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is organizing the first – and long overdue – solo exhibition in western Germany of works by the internationally celebrated Turner prizewinner Wolfgang Tillmans. The artist will be displaying his extensive and many-sided oeuvre, consisting of photographs, abstract paintings, table installations, videos, and artist’s books. His precisely configured composition will respond to the exhibition setting of the former Ständehaus.
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Now in the "Laboratory": Tactile Sculptures
"… Just as painting is perceived by the eye, sculpture should be perceived by the hand, as something tactile," claimed Ewald Mataré in 1928. The laboratory, the exhibition space of the Department of Education, embraces this challenge in a presentation that parallels the exhibition "Sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1945 to the Present" at K20. Visitors are invited to touch and to probe selected sculptures by Hede Bühl, Tony Cragg, Hubert Kiecol, Ewald Mataré, Wilhelm Mundt, and Leunora Salihu.
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