This autumn art lovers can look forward to big names and exciting interdisciplinary art projects in Düsseldorf. Galleries will be presenting a broad spectrum of works from centuries past and the present day, ranging from high-calibre photography by artists Andreas Gursky and Horst Wackerbarth to Titian's Venetian painting to concept art from Sol LeWitt. Another worthwhile way to see art is to take a trip with Düsseldorf's new Wehrhahn subway line, an ambitious infrastructural project that even made the pages of the Guardian and the New York Times. Düsseldorf Marketing & Tourismus GmbH (DMT) has attractive travel packages for visitors to the city, giving them the chance to enjoy relaxed cultural weekends in the state capital.
The K 20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is currently hosting an exhibition of and with Andreas Gursky for the first time. For the show Andreas Gursky – not abstract (ending on 11/06/2016), in engaging with American colour-field painting, the photographic artist explores questions relating to photography's potential for abstraction. Gursky is commenting on the collection and the rooms of the Kunstsammlung NRW with a small group of works: the Amerikanersaal serves as the stage for the artist's latest works which he presents for the first time. With his pictures, Andreas Gursky is responding to the “heroes” of US art such as Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko or Barnett Newman which form part of the NRW state collection. Supplanting their places, Gursky's works communicate with these absent American artists. This mirrors the “competition” between painting and photography as a central preoccupation of the artistic photographer: in this way the Kunstsammlung itself becomes Gursky's artistic working environment.
The new exhibition “Behind the Curtain” at the Museum Kunstpalast engages with the interplay between revealing and concealing. It presents viewers with high-calibre works by artists ranging from Titian or Rubens through to Gerhard Richter, all of which pick up on the motif of the veil or curtain. “Behind the Curtain” is on at the Museum Kunstpalast from 1 October 2016 until 22 January 2017.
In 1967, Konrad Fischer and his wife Dorothee opened a gallery in Düsseldorf's Altstadt (Old Town) which quickly became a meeting point for artists and collectors from all over the world. Fischer was particularly interested in the contemporary art being produced at that time, and he is still considered to have blazed a trail for concept art. The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen will be celebrating the acquisition of the famous Düsseldorf gallery owners' collection with its exhibition “Cloud & Crystal. The Dorothee and Konrad Fischer Collection.” From 24 September 2016 until 8 January 2017, painting and conceptual art will come together at K20, allowing visitors to understand this upheaval in 20th century art, on the basis of works by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Sol LeWitt.
There is also art in Düsseldorf outside the city's many museums and galleries. In February this year the new subway line was formally opened. Since then, the so-called Wehrhahn Line has become an attractive alternative to the car for many people – not only because of the good connections it offers, but also because of its artistic design. The Werhahn Line is an ambitious project that even made the pages of the Guardian and the New York Times. It is the first undertaking in a German city in which each of the six stations was designed by a different artist and bears uniquely creative hallmarks composed of word threads, visual and sound corridors as well as conceptual, aesthetic and computerised images. While, as a rule, artists are only brought in once the architecture is already in place, in this case artists and architects got together at the start of the project. The common goal of all those involved was to make art and architecture inseparable at the new stations and allow them to communicate with each other. To this end, the architectural design was put out to tender across the EU in 2001. The team of “netzwerkarchitekten” and artist Heike Klussmann emerged as the winner. They were subsequently commissioned to develop six stations, each with a different artist, all of whom had studied at Düsseldorf's Kunstakademie. Each of the resulting stations bears an entirely unique and distinctive signature. At the “Graf-Adolf-Platz” station, for example, Manuel Franke created “Achat”, a large-scale painted installation. The colour purple moves through the striking green of the glass wall covering like a slowly flowing mass. Meanwhile at the “Benrather Strasse” subway station, passengers feel themselves to be both beneath the earth and in outer space. For “Himmel oben, Himmel unten” (sky above, sky below), artist Thomas Stricker installed numerous monitor walls showing a 3D space animation, allowing stars and planets to wheel past the subway users.
Art-loving visitors can combine a visit to the city's exhibitions with an overnight stay in the state capital at any time of the year with DMT's “Düsseldorf à la card” hotel package. Apart from one night's accommodation with breakfast in a centrally-located Düsseldorf hotel, the package also includes a DüsseldorfCard. This gives the holder free bus and rail transport within the city, and offers numerous concessions at many leisure and cultural amenities.
