The international contemporary art of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen locates at K21, the former Ständehaus overlooking Düsseldorf’s Kaiserteich. While rotating exhibitions animate the basement level and the Bel Etage, the galleries surrounding the arcades on the second and third floors are dedicated to the State of NRW’s excellent collection of contemporary art. Long-standing highlights include photographs by Thomas Struth, sculptures by Thomas Schütte, and video works by artists such as Robert Wilson. Equally prominent is Reinhard Mucha’s monumental installation “Das Deutschlandgerät” (“The Germany Device”), which has occupied the former plenary chamber of the Ständehaus since the museum opened in 2002. As a dynamic core of the institution, it exemplifies how artists and museums continually renegotiate their position within history.

The ever-evolving presentation on the second and third floors offers numerous recent acquisitions to discover. Many were created for or featured in the museum’s most recent temporary exhibitions, including works by Cao Fei, Isa Genzken, Isaac Julien, Marcel Odenbach, Raqs Media Collective, Hito Steyerl, and Ai Weiwei. Photography—both analogue and digital—forms another major focus, represented by artists such as Candida Höfer, Zanele Muholi, Bunny Rogers, Dayanita Singh, Akram Zaatari, and Tobias Zielony. New acquisitions in painting include works by Tamina Amadyar, Anna Boghiguian, Paul Czerlitzki, Florian Krewer, and Nicholas Grafia. As the most recent additions to the collection, these paintings underscore the continued vitality of a practice shaped by political and formal-aesthetic inquiry. William Kentridge’s resonant video work “Tide Table” (2002) is also on view on the third floor.

The annual K21 Global Art Award—granted to internationally acclaimed artists under the age of 45 (2023: Senzeni Marasela, 2024: Wang Tuo, 2025: Tadáskía)—is seamlessly integrated into the collection displays, as is the archive of Dorothee and Konrad Fischer located on the first floor. Drawn from the estate of the influential Düsseldorf gallerists, the museum regularly presents artistic positions and thematic directions shaped by their legacy; for 2025, the focus is on Lawrence Weiner.