Graduate students attended the opening “Conversion” featuring Ralf Brueck.

Brueck is a younger exponent of the Düsseldorf School of Photography, which has achieved worldwide recognition through Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer, Thomas Struth, and Thomas Ruff, whose master student he became in 2002. His large format images are known for their radical editing that argue a photograph constitutes its own reality. They also refer to pop cultural icons and are supported by their titles.

Kunst & Decker is locally-run gallery in Düsseldorf.

Graduate students visited the exhibition “Breathing Water, Drinking Air” at Philara, a private collection of contemporary art comprising more than 1,800 works in genres such as painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, and video.

To demonstrate its wide range and diverse points of interconnection that stem from the exuberance and asymmetrical directions of a passion for collecting, works are juxtaposed in new correlations and with a specific theme. It engages with reflection within and on nature, and the hierarchization of humanity and nature.

In the mid-1900s, Gil Bronner began to build his collection, which, with its strong connection to the Düsseldorf Art Academy, has set itself the task of promoting local emerging artists.

Graduate students visited plan d, an artist-run gallery in Düsseldorf, to see the new show contemporary show “Back from Helsinki”. Participating artists, Katrin Laade and Peter Clouth, gave an exclusive tour of their works and the works of the other talented artists.

Guided by galley founders Dunja Evers and Thomas Mass, the grads had a private tour at BOA of Andrea Tippel’s catalogue in celebration of her 77th birthday.

The artist Andrea Tippel was born in Hirsau in Black Forest in 1945 and died in Berlin in 2012. Her oeuvre can be understood as a transcript of personal reflection characterized by great open-mindedness.

BOA is an artist-run gallery based in Düsseldorf that showcases contemporary art.

Our first and second year grads had the chance to visit Sven Kroner’s studio in Neuss. Each student had the opportunity to meet with the artist individually for a critique.

Kroner is a contemporary German painter who studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he was a master student in Dieter Krieg’s class. His large-format works mostly show landscapes and interiors. Kroner uses different perspectives and levels in his works to create a spectacle of illusions. The viewer is shown a fictitious place that on the one hand reflects reality, but on the other hand address memory and visions of the future.

Our graduate students were free to explore the city and choose their own gallery adventures!

Students travelled to Brussels, Belgium, the city known for its historical and architectural landmarks (such as Grand-Place) and its cuisine (local waffles, chocolate, fries and its numerous types of beers). They visited The Royal Museum and the Musée Fin-de-Siècle, where they viewed famous works, like The Death of Marat, 1793. At the Magritte Museum, they were able to see the world’s largest collection of the renowned surrealist artist René Magritte where 230 of his works and archives are displayed.

We welcome Van Maltese as our incoming International Randal Chair in Painting this semester!

Vanessa Maltese (she/they – b. 1988, Toronto, Canada)
Multidisciplinary in breadth, Vanessa Maltese’s practice deploys various forms of trickery and illusion to pose questions about perception. Maltese is interested in the plasticity of the brain, and how conflicts of perception have the power to change our methods of thinking, even in common everyday experiences. 

Maltese received a BFA from OCAD University in 2010. In 2012, Maltese was the National Winner of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition and in 2018 they attended the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Program. Maltese has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions across North America, most recently at COOPER COLE, Toronto (2021); Mickey Gallery, Chicago (2020); Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago (2019); Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2019); The Power Plant, Toronto (2018); the National Gallery Library and Archives, Ottawa (2017); Carl Louie, London ON (2017); Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2016); Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, New York (2016); Art Museum of the University of Toronto, Toronto (2016); and Erin Stump Projects, Toronto (2012). Maltese currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Siennie Lee, a current graduate student in the Alfred/Düsseldorf Painting program has been selected for the prestigious and highly competitive artist residency program at the Fine Arts Work Center. 

Since its creation 50 years ago, the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship has become one of the leading residency programs in the world. 

Each year, the Work Center offers 20 seven-month residencies to a juried group of emerging visual artists, fiction writers, and poets, each of whom receive an apartment, a studio (for visual artists), and a monthly stipend of $1,000 plus an exit stipend. Residencies run from October 1 through April 30. During this time, Fellows have the opportunity to pursue their work independently in a diverse and supportive community of peers. 

The Fine Arts Work Center has hosted more than 1,000 Fellows since 1968, nurturing an accomplished and far-reaching alumni network. The impact of the experience is best illustrated by the extensive list of awards Fellows have gone on to win, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellowship, Prix de Rome, Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Grads attended the opening exhibition “Adjustable Monuments” at the Philara Collection, a contemporary gallery in the Dusseldorf which seeks to promote local emerging artists. The artists participating in the show question how history has been publicly commemorated by exhibiting personal monuments and narratives.