Francis Bacon - The Violence of the Real
16 September 2006 - 7 January 2007

Dramatic depictions of human forms - writhing painfully, dissolving, wrestling or engulfing one another, seated or in motion - are ubiquitous in the work of Francis Bacon (1909-1992), the most eminent 20th century British painter. Like no other artist of his generation, Bacon scenarized the ordeal of the vulnerable, defenselessly exposed body. His individuals are usually alone, isolated from their surroundings, trapped in empty, windowless rooms or behind the bars of cages. Bacon’s figures act on stage-like platforms, doubled over in torment, sliding into formlessness. By wiping, scratching, and erasures, Bacon converted the picture surface into a field of perpetually irritating activity - and in the process, created images of great forcefulness, sensibility, and beauty. At the center of this retrospectively conceived exhibition will be Bacon’s disturbing yet captivating studies of the human figure. The presentation will consists of approximately 60 works, among them both of Bacons owned by the Kunstsammlung since 1964 and 1986 respectively: Lying Figure No. 3 of 1959, and Man in Blue V of 1954. The accent will be on the painterly expression of a still prevalent sense of the loss of stable identity, and on a self that is vulnerable to “invisible forces” and threatened by deprivation of any secure place in the world. Find out more

The exhibition forms part of the Quadriennale 2006, in Düsseldorf.

Image:

Triptych, 1970 (Detail), oil on canvas, each 198,1 x 147,3 cm
National Gallery of Australia Canberra. Purchased 1973
© The Estate of Francis Bacon / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006

Juan Muñoz - Rooms of My Mind
14 October 2006 – 4 February 2007

The exhibition provides a comprehensive perspective on the work of the Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz (1953 - 2001) who represented one of the most important renewers of figurative and narrative sculpture in the 80s. In addition to single works of sculpture and sculptural groups, drawings and audio plays, in which Muñoz’s comprehensive interest in the fascination of space and illusion becomes clear, are presented.

The exhibition attempts to make visible the most important aspects of the works such that they do not exhaust themselves in the production of any one of the single sculptures or figures. For the artist the creation of a total atmosphere, at the centre of which is a space brimming with human emotions and ideas, is of greater importance than the inventive single plastic formulation. Find out more

The exhibition forms part of the Quadriennale 2006, in Düsseldorf.

20 Years of K20 - Art of the 20th Century
14 July - 27 August 2006

In spring of 1986, our elegant museum building, designed by the Danish architectural team Dissing + Weitling, opened to the public. Today, we can look back on 20 years of high-quality exhibitions and numerous related events. With the commencement in fall of 2007 of work on an extension set on Paul Klee Platz, another new era begins.

In the past, a scarcity of gallery space has consigned large portions of our internationally acclaimed collection to storage depots. The 20th anniversary of the K20 represents an opportunity to devote the entire building to presenting the permanent collection. For the first time in more than three years, key works of 20th-century art are on display on all three levels of the K20. This overview - which includes works by Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Beckmann, Klee, Magritte, Max Ernst, Dalí, and others - features the classics of the collection. Spacious galleries now accommodate works of late 20th century American art. Here, the focus is on Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Ellsworth Kelly, as well as on Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter. The presentation also includes rarely exhibited works from the permanent collection which - for the last time before the temporary closing in late summer of 2007 - are tested in dialogue with masterworks of Modernism.

The Collection

Museums in the 21st Century:
Concepts Projects Buildings 
1st April - 25 June 2006

The museum seems to have assumed the role of urban landmark formerly fulfilled by the cathedral. Today, this institution serves as a symbol of cultural identification in a society that is passing through an insecure phase, one caused not least by the steadily advancing progress of globalization. A spectacular museum building can enhance a city’s attractiveness, shifting a remote locale into public awareness through its striking presence, or else endowing a fallow industrial zone with a new function.

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Henri Matisse

Figure Colour Space

29 October 2005 – 26 February 2006

Viewers of paintings by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) are greeted by a paradise, an enchanting, carefree world peopled by women who repose, drowse, contemplate their surroundings, read, or engage in play. The feminine figure set within an enclosed space is the central motif in the creative work of this French artist. But the theme of women in an interior setting not only offers a wide-ranging introduction to Matisse´s beguiling visual world. It also impressively illustrates his decisive overall contribution to the development of Modernism in painting.

K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen shows an exquisite selection of works by Matisse, on loan both from internationally renowned museums – in London, New York, Paris and St. Petersburg with key Modernist collections – and from private collectors. With approximately eighty paintings in all, this will be the first major Matisse exhibition seen in the German-speaking world in over twenty years. Supplementing the paintings will be a number of the artist´s exceptional drawings and sculptures.

Martin Kippenberger
10 June – 10 September 2006

Along the chronology of Kippenberger’s career the exhibition shows selected examples of Kippenberger´s paintings and conceptual painting projects as well as ensembles of his sculptures, multiples, drawings, posters, books and previously unpublished material.

With “Lieber Maler, male mir / Dear Painter, Paint for Me” (1981), “Heavy Burschi / Heavy Guy” (1991) and the installation “Weiße Bilder /White Paintings”(1992) the focus shifts to Kippenberger’s concept of delegating art to others. Interchange, confrontation and cooperation are the distinguishing characteristics of Kippenberger’s artistic endeavour. His constant search lead him to try out different roles, for instance, as a writer, a musician, a museum director and also as the manager of an underground railway network which operated on a worldwide level. As a club and restaurant owner he brought together art and entertainment. This lead the artist to wish with coquettish modesty that people would one day say of him: “Kippenberger was a good mood”.

An exhibition in cooperation with Tate Modern, London.

With the generous support of Kunststiftung NRW.

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Mirosław Bałka - Lichtzwang
13 May - 10 September 2006

The exhibition shows, for the first time, a selection of video works by the internationally highly respected Polish sculptor (b. 1958). Bałka uses simple means to film everyday scenes and moments, most of them observations of details which go on to assume a mysterious and poetic dimension in his films. Tiny events produce images of great intensity, which touch upon fundamental human experiences, fears and hopes. Five video works from the last six years are being shown. Many of the projections have small sculptural additions that give them a concrete place in the exhibition space and involve the ephemeral medium of video in a physical reality. The title of the exhibition, taken from a poem by Paul Celan, also plays thoughtfully with the preconditions for a medium that has by now become so important in the field of art.

40yearsvideoart.de - part 1
Digital Heritage: Video Art in Germany from 1963 to the Present

The 80´s

25 March – 21 May 2006

The Düsseldorf exhibition, which is part of the project “40yearsvideoart.de”, focuses on the different aspects within artistic video work in the 1980’s in West Germany. A significant development from monitor presentation to installation occurred in the course of this decade. On the eve of digital production, the medium video not only became established as a pictorial process but was also being used as a means of documentation. In view of the zeitgeist, private television, population census, Neue Deutsche Welle and punk, the genuinely socio-political, democratic and utopian dimensions of video reached their peak during the last years of the German Federal Republic. Video works by Abramovic/Ulay, Gerd Conradt/Hartmut Jahn, Dellbrügge & de Moll, Dieter Froese, Ingo Günther, Jean-François Guiton, Dieter Kiessling and Marcel Odenbach are on display. A separate section of the exhibition highlights the special relationship between video art and television during the 1980’s (with works by Kurt Raab/Hanno Baethe/Hans Hirschmüller, Klaus vom Bruch, Die Tödliche Doris, Michael Klier, Nam June Paik and Robert Wilson). Initiated by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

Find out more

www.40jahrevideokunst.de

Ambiance - Des Deux Côtés du Rhin

15 October 2005 – 12 February 2006

Under the title ‘On Both Sides of the Rhine’, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, are presenting a collaborative project that consists of two parallel exhibitions of contemporary art as well as a framing programme. Both exhibitions consist of works from the collections of the French Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain (FRAC), which celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year. The group exhibitions entitled ‘Ambiance’ (K21) and ‘Mouvement’ (Museum Ludwig) show international art since the sixties with emphasis on the present day. With the generous support of the AFAA, the Cultural Department of the French Embassy in Germany and the Délégation aux arts plastiques du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. In cooperation with the Association Nationale des Directeurs de FRAC.

An exhibition in collaboration with the Museum Ludwig, Cologne.