Construction work finished - “art set free”

"With the re-opening on 7 May 2011, the Museum Kunstpalast will be able, after being closed for more than two years, to unveil its treasures once more, and put some 450 selected artworks from the Middle Ages to the present day on display. Our museum’s self-definition is focused on our collection, which comprises over 100,000 paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, photography, decorative art exhibits and glass objects, a fraction of which, however, can at any one time ever be shown to the public due to space limitations." (Beat Wismer, General Director)

As a living art museum with a highly varied cross-cultural collection, and at the same time as the repository of the large collection of the Düsseldorf Art Academy and the location of AFORK (the artistic-photography archive of the Rhineland art scene) we hope, with the new presentation, to let the art tell its stories and to illustrate, quite literally, the history of the Düsseldorf art collection.

The museum presents on an area of 5,500 m² its permanent collection with a concept developed by the team of curators under General Director Beat Wismer: the new presentation illustrates the variety of the collections in the Museum Kunstpalast, one of the few institutions in the Rhineland to accommodate important collections of paintings, sculpture, graphic works, glass, crafts and new media under one roof.

Art in Düsseldorf

The art-historically clear structure of the presentation offers the chance to take a more targeted look at the important groups of works which are particularly well represented in the collection, for example late-medieval sculpture, Dutch and Flemish painting of the 16th to 18th centuries, European painting from the Romantic period to Impressionism, with a focus on the Düsseldorf School of painting*, works by the German Expressionists, the ZERO Group, or Colour Field painting since 1945. Likewise important aspects of Düsseldorf’s artistic life are illustrated, as reflected in the history of the collection itself: thus for example the provenance of the paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and the sculptures by Gabriel de Grupello from the collection of Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm (“Jan Wellem”) and his consort Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici.

We should also mention the origin of various exhibits in the Applied Arts department, which came from the former Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Crafts), and not least the relocation to the museum of the Düsseldorf pub “Creamcheese”, which was decorated in 1967 by artists including Gerhard Richter, Heinz Mack, Ferdinand Kriwet and Günther Uecker. Thus the new presentation will illustrate more clearly both the regional references of the Düsseldorf art museum and at the same time its international importance.

On their way through the Museum Kunstpalast, visitors will wander through the most important periods of art history, encountering paintings and sculptures, exhibits from the textile collection and oriental bookbinding, as well as cabinets with small examples of the art of metalworkers and goldsmiths, as well as splendid objects designed to enhance the dinner table.

The History of the Museum and the Ehrenhof

In addition, in a separate room on the first floor of the collection wing, there will be an exhibition of numerous photographs to document the history of the museum, which in its present architectural form as part of the Ehrenhof complex was built by Wilhelm Kreis in 1926/1927 on the occasion of a major exhibition on health, social welfare and physical education (known by its German acronym as GeSoLei) and since then has housed the Düsseldorf Civic Art Collections established in 1913.

Rubens Gallery

The high points of the tour of the collection include the Rubens Gallery with the paintings “The Assumption of the Virgin” and “Venus and Adonis” by the gallery’s eponym, as well as other painters active at the court of Elector Jan Wellem, e.g. Frans van Douven and the aforementioned sculptor Grupello. The Rubens Gallery is supplemented by a Decoratori Gallery with exhibits from the collection of Baroque oil sketches housed on the balcony.

A further focus of the collection in the field of 18th and 19th-century painting has been extended in recent years by such new acquisitions as the “Portrait of the Improvisation Virtuoso Teresa Bandettini-Landucci of Lucca” by Angelika Kaufmann, now being presented here for the first time.

Artist Rooms

Further highlights are the artist rooms, which are designed by the artists themselves, such as Nam June Paik, who attached his multimonitor installation “Fish Flies on Sky” (1983–1985) beneath one of the ceilings, or the room with works by Joseph Beuys, or the ZERO-Lichtraum, set up jointly by Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günter Uecker at the documenta in Kassel in 1964 as a homage to Fontana, and a fixed part of the museum’s inventory since the 1970s. Particular attention should also be given to the legendary “Creamcheese” (1967–1977) and Thomas Schütte’s room installation “Furniture for ‘One Man Houses’” (2005), which in 2010 was given to the museum on permanent loan from the collection of the Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf.

Art since 1945

In the field of art since 1945, the presentation will be changed at regular intervals to take account of the large size both of some of the works themselves, and of the collection. This the works of German and foreign artists such as Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Frank Stella, David Hockney, Antonio Calderara and many others will be on display in changing contexts appropriate to the works in question.

Guide

Aa 350-page Guide accompanies the new presentation of the collection (in German and English), with an introduction by Beat Wismer, an essay by Oswald Egger and about 300 commentaries on the works, with illustrations.
Price: 19.90 euros

Supported by METRO Group (main sponsor) and UBS (sponsor)