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Will new fair Art Düsseldorf compete with largest German art fair in Cologne?

Art Cologne, the largest art fair in Germany and the oldest fair of its kind worldwide, might soon have competition on its hands with the launch of another art fair in the Rhineland region.

Published: 8 November 2017 12:29 CET
Will new fair Art Düsseldorf compete with largest German art fair in Cologne?
File photo of visitors at Art Basel: DPA.

Art Düsseldorf will open its doors to the public from November 17th to 19th, inviting visitors to check out its large galleries full of well-known participants.

Ever since the new fair was announced, it has created suspense – partly because Swiss trade fair company MCH, which also organizes the famed global art fair, Art Basel, has had a hand in organizing Art Düsseldorf too.

The strong Rhineland art region is likely to have been one of the reasons why MCH decided to get on board. Over the past few years, there had been a few attempts to establish art fairs in Düsseldorf, but all were made in vain.

Interest in Düsseldorf’s lively art scene and its abundance of collectors can be seen in the fact that altogether 270 participants registered to take part in the new fair. But Art Düsseldorf organizers announced in September there would be only be about 80 participants “for reasons of space.”

Among the 80 participants are international heavyweights.

David Zwirner and Marlborough Contemporary from New York will be present as well as other galleries from the US, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Gallery owners from Israel, Japan, Turkey and Uruguay have also been invited.

But there will be local galleries present too. Around 20 galleries will represent Cologne and Düsseldorf, including Michael Werner, Thomas Rehbein, Hans Mayer, Schönewald and Van Horn.

About 50 kilometres away from Düsseldorf in the neighbouring city of Cologne, annual fair Art Cologne – much larger than Art Düsseldorf – hosted around 200 participants last April.

But there are no overlaps between the two fairs, according to Art Düsseldorf director Walter Gehlen, who pointed out that a large number of participants in his fair are also represented in major international exhibitions and many of them are using the new fair as a platform parallel to Art Cologne.

Young collectors are an important target group in the art fair market, Gehlen added.

Art Cologne is held annually in April. Photo: DPA.

Skeptics initially feared that Art Düsseldorf would split the Rhineland art scene.

In April Art Cologne boss Daniel Hug had even accused MCH of “colonialism”.

But Gehlen disagrees. “Colonization is a process that involves oppression, exploitation and threat,” he said. “Our exhibitors are very happy to come voluntarily because they are convinced by Art Düsseldorf’s concept.”

In June, Art Basel boss Marc Spiegler said: “Each trade fair generates new markets and new collectors.”

Nevertheless, organizer of Art Cologne, Kölnmesse, has already taken matters into its own hands.

In September, Kölnmesse for the first time helped organize Art Berlin, an exhibition during Berlin Art Week. This was done with the aim to develop Art Berlin into a leading art fair alongside Art Cologne.

One of the main drawbacks about the Berlin art scene though is that there still aren’t many buyers and collectors there – these people are more often found in the Rhineland, Belgium or France.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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