HOMMAGE A MUSEUM ABTEIBERG – Sensational! The 2022 Annual Gifts

Museumsverein Abteiberg (Museum Association Abteiberg) landed a truly sensational coup! At the occasion of the triple anniversary of 120 years Museumsverein/50 years annual gifts/40 years Museum Abteiberg 66(!) artists followed the Association's unusual invitation to contribute to the creation of a HOMMAGE A MUSEUM ABTEIBERG, amongst them Andrea Bowers, Alexandra Bircken, Imi Knoebel, Thomas Rentmeister, Giuseppe Penone, Katharina Sieverding, Ulrich Rückriem, Monica Bonvicini, Jonathan Meese and Joanne Greenbaum. Thus sensational unique works of unbelievable diversity were created that are connected by only one common factor: A box measuring 28,0 x 33,5 x 2,5 cm – the same as the Grünen Schachtel by Marcel Duchamp from 1934 in the museum's collection. Why a box? Where did the idea come from? How are the artworks presented? Under which conditions is the acquisition at a flat rate of 1.200 Euros possible? You can find all the answers here. Because, as a member of the advisory board I have been involved from the start ,)
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INSTANT SOLUTIONS by Xenia Lesniewski – Between Concept Store, funeral parlour and travel agency

Bad-Gastein. Is that an urn in the window and a coffin at the back of the shop? Nonsense, it’s probably simply a vase and a trunk. After all, an exhibition is about to be opened within the context of the sommer.frische.kust art festival. While I am still shaking my head at my own thoughts, I pause, in a mixture of feeling dumbfounded and astonished, when I hear the opening speech: “Xenia Lesniewski created a room installation here that moves between a concept store, funeral parlour and travel agency […].” Is that possible? – My past just flitted through my mind at high speed and links up with the here and now. For those, who didn’t know this yet: Before I got involved in art, I was an undertaker….
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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 ...

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 ?

Alex Grein – Ephemeral: photographically “exposed“

Cell phone holders, blocks of ice, dissecting tables, frozen matter in a freezer, viscous matter in canisters, photographs in deformed frames, and butterflies on video screens. Although I haven’t seen them, the mere listing makes me more than curious about this exhibition. How can we connect all of these, such different works? A first idea is conveyed in the exhibition title „d a  u   e    r“ ...
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Banz & Bowinkel – Digital shadows of real images

Admittedly, I had successfully managed to sneak by the world of Immersive art without paying attention, until I visited this exhibition. The terminology alone, with its abbreviations, seemed scary to me: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Bots, and now Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) ... Too technical. Too complicated. Or so I thought until I met Giulia Bowinkel and Friedemann Banz – THE artist duo that has been shaping the development of this young art form since its beginnings.

Anke Loots – Everything in its right place. Walkaround with Anke Loots

Cape Town. I had no idea that the THK Gallery is an exhibition venue founded only eight months ago by – of all people – an inhabitant of Cologne, a person, therefore who just like myself, is from the Rhineland. Initially, it was the cover of the current first thursdays cape town* tour guide, which took me to Waterkant Street and thus to Frank Schönau and the artist, whose self-portrait graces the cover of the guide. It is the first solo exhibition of the 27-year-old Anke Loots, a student of the photographic artist Pieter Hugo, with whom – coincidentally ? - I also have an appointment at the end of the week ...