K20

The main attraction in the Düsseldorf K20 museum goes without photos. A no cameras policy is put in place just in case someone should carry the hardware to fully capture the unbelievably detailed work of Andreas Gursky – and somehow manages to beat reflections from the extra large glass frames that hold them.

The exhibition “Andreas Gursky – not abstract” provides an initial look at new works by the renowned Düsseldorf photoartist, all of them created especially for this project and presented here alongside selected earlier works. In his recent works, Andreas Gursky explores the abstract potential of the photographic medium. From early in his career, abstraction has served Gursky as a resource for compositional freedom, and in his view, establishes the closest possible proximity between painting and photography.
– kunstsammlung.de

Taking most of the first floor, the Gursky exhibition consists of such large works that it still feels rather small. The size of the remaining K20 exhibition space naturally adds to that impression.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Part of the exhibition space is reserved for the labyrinth of spaces of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.

The exhibition in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is organized jointly with the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. With approximately 15 labyrinthine spaces occupying two exhibition halls of the K20, it is the largest exhibition devoted to this artist to date, and offers a retrospective overview of her work of the past 25 years.

In the art of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (born in 1965 in Strasbourg, lives in Paris and Rio de Janeiro), everything revolves around experiences of and reflections on spaces and times. Using often minimal resources, she evokes places, people, and things that exist in one form or another in our collective memory. Her themes may be as diverse as the influence of hippiedom during the 1970s, the film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the urban utopia of Brasilia, King Ludwig II, psychoanalysis, a tropical rainstorm, or the prospects for the year 2066.
– kunstsammlung.de