Videos and Photographs: Selected Works from the Permanent Collection

In the basement level of the K21, real sets / fictional sets features videos and photographs from the permanent collection that take the stage/film set as the point of departure for the most diverse scenarized spatial arrangements, an approach that offers fields of play for a variety of scenes, plots, and narratives. 

On view for the first time will be the collection's most recent acquisition: with Candida Höfer’s large format color photograph "Schmelahaus Düsseldorf I" (2011), an important new addition to the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen stands at the center of the temporary presentation of works from the collection entitled "real sets / fictional sets." Höfer's striking photograph "Schmelahaus Düsseldorf I" (2011) is a gift of the artist to the Society of Friends of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Höfer's view of an empty room, its walls and concrete block ceiling, as well as its white marble flooring, shows the northeastern corner of the exhibition space located in the basement level of the building – constructed in 1971 after designs by the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck for the legendary Düsseldorf gallerist Alfred Schmela in 1971 – located at Mutter-Ey-Straße 3. In the sober style so characteristic of Höfer's work, this minimalist architecture, illuminated by neon lighting, is presented as a blank surface that awaits a future utilization.