Grads visited the K21 museum in Düsseldorf to see Jenny Holzer’s exhibition.

Holzer is an American artist known for her thought provoking installations that combine text and light. Her works often address issues of power, violence, gender, and challenge viewers to question their own assumptions and beliefs.

Grads also explored the international contemporary art sections from the art collection of North Rhine-Westphalia which concentrate on the new acquisitions of recent years. Works from the collection by Ed Atkins, Lutz Bacher, Simon Denny, Sabrina Fritsch, Isa Genzken, Carsten Nicolai, Hito Steyerl and Raqs Media Collective are shown in individual rooms. The presentation of the collection also includes photographs by Thomas Struth, which, like the large installations by Reinhard Mucha and Tomás Saraceno, have long been part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Grads visited the opening of māteriālia in Düsseldorf featuring contemporary artists Inma Femenía, Lucila Pacheco Dehne, Fabian Ramírez, Klara Virnich, and Denise Werth.

During the opening viewers were surprised by the sudden performance of Klara Virnich.

The grads visited Noemi Weber’s studio in Düsseldorf and were provided the opportunity to meet individually for critique.

Weber is a visual artist based in Düsseldorf, whose work spans across painting, sculpture, and space. She studied under Katharina Grosse at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Her work is focused on exploring the essence of painting and redefining its possibilities, and it showcases a variety of expressive forms and exhibition modes.

In her current works, Weber examines the interplay between material, color, and space on the one hand, and the viewer’s perceptual paradigms on the other. She sheds light on the fascinating relationship between these elements and how they can be manipulated to create new meanings and experiences. Recently, she has conducted painting experiments by collaborating with her sister’s dance performances, using them as a form of painting gesture.

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.