The toxic building – How Jan Glisman turned the deconstruction of the Deutsche Welle towers into a multimedia art project

All Jan Glisman really wanted to do was to "just" document a spectacular event in Cologne: The demolition of all three parts of the 138-metre-high Deutsche Welle broadcasting tower, the third-highest building in the city. The funding had been approved, the plans worked out, but then - everything turned out quite differently. The risk to the broadcasting operations of Deutschlandfunk, which is connected by a common foundation slab, and the spread of asbestos fibres feared by residents in the neighbourhood had prevented the blasting. “Blasting” therefore became "deconstruction". A process that was to extend over a total of five years and challenged Glisman to document precisely that period. Huge numbers of photos, video material and drawings were initially created without any concrete idea of what was to happen with them ...

Richard Siegal – Focus on the choreographer, Episode 4 of the series “Behind the Arts”

The imminent premiere of XERROX Vol. 2, a ballet for the music of the same name by Alva Noto, choreographed by Richard Siegal and performed by his company BALLET OF DIFFERENCE, was also a premiere for me. The attendance of the rehearsal and the subsequent conversation with Richard Siegal challenged me to get involved in contemporary ballet. To give you a heads up: I was immediately bowled over ...

Frederic Auerbach – Focus on the Fashion and Celebrity Photographer, Episode 4 of the series “Behind the Arts”

No matter if it is a DIOR campaign with Sharon Stone, Natalie Portman or Sophie Marceau, PORSCHE campaign with Patrick Dempsey or stylish stagings for editorial pictures in luxury magazines like VOGUE, ELLE or FLAUNT ... it is always Frederic Auerbach who is responsible for those iconic images. Born and raised in Switzerland, he was first drawn to Paris before his work finally took him to Los Angeles. At the Sander Gallery in Düsseldorf, his photographs were presented in an art context for the first time. Beside the opportunity to talk to him about his life and work I was also given the chance to gain a practical impression of his photographic approach as a model afterwards ...

SOCIÉTÉ ANGELIQUE by Angelika Kammann – Avant-garde through social design

It is only Angelika Kammann's second collection since the founding of her label SOCIÉTÉ ANGELIQUE in 2020, but her garments already adorn covers such as ICON or FAZ Magazine and inspire customers at KaDeWe in Berlin or Gallery Gazette in Tokyo, the jury of the Berliner Salon ...  and me! Why exactly? What makes her designs so special? I have the pleasure of accompanying her on her tour to the opening in Berlin, look over her shoulder during the fitting in her studio and the shooting of the new collection, and getting an in-depth impression of the world of fashion, especially her world of fashion. It quickly becomes clear why the word UTOPIA features in the titles of both collections...

Wilko Austermann – Focus on the curator, Episode 3 of the series “Behind the Arts”

Anybody travelling in the Rhineland and visiting the Upcoming artists exhibitions, is very likely to have come across his name. Whether the Antichambre in the Hotel Friends in Düsseldorf, Malkastenpark, MMIII Kunstverein Mönchengladbach, Quartier am Hafen Köln or Krefeld Kunstverein, you will find: Curated by Wilko Austermann. What exactly does a curator do? Or, to put it more accurately: How does Wilko Austermann personally define his responsibilities? We meet at MMIII Kunstverein Mönchengladbach, where he uses the example of Yoana Tuzharova's Plasma soil exhibition, that he conceptualised, to talk about his main ideas. It becomes immediately obvious, that here we have a classic case of being able to differentiate between profession and vocation.
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“But, initially, it does not claim to be anything, just itself.” Gregor Russ through a photostory portrait …

Dusseldorf. You want the most essential aspects of an artistic work visualized through a photostory? Say no more – on the occasion of Gregor Russ’ exhibition AS IF … Guaranteed reading time of less than two minutes ?

Nathalie Vanheule – The beauty of vulnerability

How can poetic art actually be explained? Strangely enough, not by using words. It comes through the senses. As so happened when l looked at the Instagram photos of Nathalie Vanheule. Even a short glance had sufficed to directly sense the emotional power of her works which move between performance, sculptures and video installations. Trying to discover this phenomenon, I am eagerly heading to Kortrijk in Belgium to meet the artist personally ...