Information
NKR - Neuer Kunstraum Düsseldorf is an exhibition space lead by artists. From 2019 to 2023 the programme was organized in turn by the duos Katharina Maderthaner / Christian Schreckenberger und Detlef Klepsch / Anne Schülke. Six exhibitions with accompanying events took place per year. After 2023 the directionwas passed on to other artists.
The organisational vessel of NKR was the working committee NKR - Neuer Kunstraum of zweck e.V. (zweckev@gmail.com).
Artists organize exhibitions.
In NKR two artists duos came together. With them, they bring differing views and consequently, they arrive at different conclusions in their work. It is our firm intention of leading NKR together.
Will this mean that we will automatically slip into the role of the curator, who often mutates into a patronising character that becomes the focal point of exhibitions? By no means! We believe that communication between artists is fundamentally different to communication between artists and curators. Once artists prove capable of removing themselves from minefields such as doubt and competition, they are free to engage at eye level and to create a common space with an unobstructed view of possible artistic work and exhibitions. In this context it may make sense to speak less of curation and instead, more of accompanying and developing exhibitions with artists.
While aware that manifesto-like texts about art often seem anachronistic, we defiantly looked into the eventful history of the artists manifesto of the 20th century and found the following: A 1961 text by Claes Oldenburg, who quite intelligently, humorously, with poetic eloquence as well as with a powerful subjectivity correctly describes the rampantly straggling fallow that is artistic creation. Though the text was written almost 60 years ago, we determined that the art that we hope for (despite all our differences!) had found an igniting, current and obvious linguistic form. From now on, we shall carry NKR forward, continue to produce art ourselves, pay our colleagues exhibition fees and hand over the direction to other artists after presumably, five years. To always attempt to stay open, constructive and contestable for that which we muscularly uphold: The ole art.
Claes Oldenburg
I am for an art
I am for an art that is political-erotic-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for all art that takes its form the lines of life itself. That twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid, as life itself.
I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.
I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.
I am for art that spills out of an old mans purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.
I am for the art out of a doggys mouth, falling five stories from the roof.
I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.
I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.
I am for art that is smoked, like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.
I am for art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief.
I am for art that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, like socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit.
[…]
I am for the art of scratchings in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.
I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.
I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beer-drinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a bar stool.
[…]
I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums & tambourines, and plastic phonographs.
I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for an art of water tanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.
I am for US Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-eat art, Best-for-less art, Ready-to-cook art, Fully cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, pork art, chicken art, tomato art, banana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art.
add:
I am for an art that is combed down, that is hung from each year, that is laid on the lips and under the eyes, that is shaved from the legs, that is brushed on the teeth, that is fixed on the thighs, that is slipped on the foot.
Square which becomes blobby.
100 Artists‘ Manifestos. From the Futurists to the Stuckists. Selected by Alex Danchev, Penguin Classics, London, 2011
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NKR continued the work of the Kunstraum Düsseldorf. In 1994 Der Kunstraum was founded and lead by Hilmar Boehle (artist), Till Hausmann (artist), Johannes auf der Lake (art historian), Silke Leverkühne (artist), Ulla Lux (managing director), Ute Reeh (artist), Raimund Stecker (Kunstverein Düsseldorf), Marie Luise Syring (Kunsthalle Düsseldorf), Sylvia Wieczorek (artist), Stephan von Wiese (Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf). Between 2008 and 2018 the Kunstraum was lead by Ulla Lux (art historian and employee of the Kulturamt Düsseldorf).