From the collection

20 April - 11 August 2013

In 1934 and 1937 the Cologne knitwear manufacturer Hermann Josef Lückger (1864 – 1951) passed his extensive glass collection to the early Kunstmuseum of the city of Düsseldorf as a loan. Owing to this addition to the museum’s holdings – the collection was later purchased – the particular importance of glass within the museum’s collection received public attention for the first time. In a sense, this was the birth of the Glasmuseum Hentrich. On the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the Kunstmuseum the exhibition is showing parts of this collection.

Reiner Ruthenbeck as documentary photographer
From our collection

20. April - 11. August 2013

2013 is a year full of anniversaries: Museum Kunstpalast turns 100 years, 50 years ago the legendary Performance “Leben mit Pop” (Living with Pop) by the two young artists Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg took place at Möbelhaus Berges in Düsseldorf, and 10 years ago the Archive of Artistic Photography of the Rhineland’s Art Scene (AFORK) was founded. The presentation of a selection of documentary photos by the sculptor Reiner Ruthenbeck fits exactly into this year. It focuses on the series of photographs documenting the performance by Lueg and Richter which survives only through Ruthenbeck’s photographs. The pictures were purchased last year and are exhibited for the first time. Additional photographs by Ruthenbeck, documenting Zero campaigns, a concert by Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik as well as further activities in the 1960s, will also be on view.

„Everything important I made can be put into a small suitcase.”
From our collection

20 April - 11 August 2013

The “Boîte en valise” was a concept which Marcel Duchamp developed since 1936 and continued to advance until shortly before his death in 1968. Since 1999, the Museum Kunstpalast owns a copy of the Serie F, which was published in 1966 in an edition of 75 copies and was supplemented with 12 additional reproductions not present in the earlier editions of this work. Especially with an artist like Duchamp, who since his first readymades questioned the concept of the “original” in art, these minimized replicas of his works are more than just replicas and realize his conceptual strength and originality without restrictions. The „Boîte en valise“ is like an instant retrospective of one of the most influential artists of the 20^th century.

20 April - 11 August 2013

On the occasion of Otto Piene’s 85th birthday, Museum Kunstpalast presents an exhibition focusing on his up-to-today nearly unknown graphit drawings. Beside his ZERO-works, Piene drew almost life-sized acts in the 1970s, often arranged in groups. The artist was interested in the encounters of persons. The energy emanating from the bodies is often felt in the lines of the drawing.