“21 x 21. RuhrKunstMuseen auf dem Hügel”

April 10, 2025 – The 21 RuhrKunstMuseen represent a unique urban museum landscape in Europe and showcase over 150 art exhibitions every year across 45,000 square metres in 16 cities in the Ruhr region. Founded as part of RUHR.2010 – European Capital of Culture, the network is realising a large-scale exhibition project to mark its 15th anniversary in spring 2025, bringing together the RuhrKunstMuseen collections in a joint show at Villa Hügel in Essen. Exceptional works from the diverse collections will enter into a dialogue that is both surprising and inspiring – the special exhibition will be put together entirely from the world-class art collections of the region’s own museums.

The collections of the RuhrKunstMuseen range from modernist masterpieces to important positions in contemporary art and encompass important national and international art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Expressionism, New Objectivity and post-war art with Art Informel, Concrete Art, Zero and Fluxus as well as the feminist avant-garde. The economic upswing prevalent in many cities in the early 20th century, triggered by industrialisation and the civic engagement of donors, patrons and employees in many places, as well as a new democratic spirit of optimism fuelling the post-war period, helping to found numerous new museums and universities, continues to shape the region’s cultural identity to this day. This has created the conditions for a rich museum landscape with a unique character that has been growing dynamically for more than 100 years. In the Ruhr region, industrial culture and art history go hand in hand.

SPECIAL EXHIBITION „21 x 21“

The exhibition “21×21. Die RuhrKunstMuseen auf dem Hügel” opens a new chapter: for the very first time, all the museums in the network will be presenting selected highlights from their collections in a joint exhibition held at Villa Hügel in Essen. The concept of the show consists of a dialogue of works from the different collections presented in ten playfully associative themed rooms. Almost all artistic genres are represented – from painting, photography, graphic work and sculpture to multimedia installations. The spectrum ranges from works of Classical Modernism to positions of the immediate present. Internationally renowned artists meet regional positions and artist groups closely associated with the Ruhr region. The exhibition can be seen from 11 April to 27 July 2025 and offers a unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive image of the museum collections of the Ruhr region.

VILLA HÜGEL

The special exhibition 21×21 will be shown in the historic Villa Hügel in the Bredeney area of Essen. The listed villa and the neighbouring 40-hectare park are owned by the non-profit Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation. With its commitment, the foundation not only ensures the preservation and maintenance of the premises, but also makes it a lively meeting place for visitors.

Villa Hügel was built between 1870 and 1873 as a residence for the Krupp family of industrialists and was lived in by four generations. In 1953, it opened its doors to the public with its first art exhibition. This was the start of an exhibition tradition that continues to this day. Exhibitions such as Sinn und Sinnlichkeit. Das Flämische Stillleben 1550–1680 (2002), Katharina Fritsch (2016) and Josef Albers. Interaction (2018) attracted an international audience and wrote a success story that the exhibition 21×21, which is substantially supported by the Krupp Foundation, continues.

With its 399 rooms and a space of more than 11,000 square metres, Villa Hügel is not only an important industrial monument, but also a place that reflects German history in a unique way. It offers the participating museums and exhibited works an impressive historical setting in which to bring the region’s industrial culture and art historical interrelationships to life.

IMPULSE WORKS AS A STARTING POINT – DISCOVERING THE COLLECTIONS IN THEMED ROOMS

The special aspect about the exhibition is that each of the 21 museums presents itself and the focus of its collection through a so-called ‘impulse work’, inviting the partner museums to respond with works from their own collections. Striking individual works have been selected that reflect the strengths and orientation of the individual museums in a special way.

The Lehmbruck Museum – Centre of International Sculpture in Duisburg presents the sculpture Große Sinnende (1913) by Wilhelm Lehmbruck and thus looks at the female image. First exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in spring 1914, the work is considered a key example of expressive sculpture. It shows the larger-than-life nude of a self-confident young woman of her time. It is juxtaposed with a painting by Lehmbruck’s contemporary Paula Modersohn-Becker from Märkisches Museum in Witten. With a large-format double portrait of a woman by Gerhard Richter from the 1960s (LUDWIGGALERIE Schloss Oberhausen), the thematic overview continues through the 20th and 21st centuries to more recent and overtly feminist works such as a Herdbild by Rosemarie Trockel from the 1990s (Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg) or the painting The Potential of Being (2017) by the American painter and performance artist Eliza Douglas (Museum Folkwang, Essen).

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE OF THE RUHR AREA

The exhibition also focuses on works that deal with the industrial heritage and history of coal mining in the Ruhr region. International and regional positions, classic media and multimedia spaces of experience come together here. These include the photo series by German-American Michael Wolf (1954–2019) devoted to Die Lebensbedingungen einer Bergmannssiedlung am Beispiel von Bottrop-Ebel as well as the six-channel sound installation mono / industriell by Denise Ritter. Shortly before the Prosper-Haniel colliery closed, the Dortmund artist captured the typical industrial sounds that had characterised the everyday working life of miners for decades. In the exhibition, her sound installation interacts with positions of abstraction, such as the works of the internationally influential Bottrop-born artist Josef Albers.

THEMED ROOM ON LANDSCAPE

In another themed room, alpine landscapes by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexej von Jawlensky and Gabriele Münter are set alongside impressions from the Ruhr region – for example, a black-and-white photograph from LUDWIGGALERIE Schloss Oberhausen by the well-known Ruhr photographer Rudolf Holtappel entitled Schneelandschaft bei Gelsenkirchen (1962); smoking chimneys can be seen in the background. The large-format photograph Coal Seam, Bergwerk Prosper-Haniel 4 by the Canadian-American Becher student Miles Coolidge from the Josef Albers Museum Bottrop Quadrat is a fitting addition to the exhibition.

SOCIAL CRITICISM AND POLITICAL WORK

Social change is explored in the themed room devoted to ‘Umbrüche’ (Upheavals). The work Ohne Titel (Stahltisch) by Beuys’s pupil Anatol (1931–2019) is the impulse work here. It is a relic of a legendary action that took place in December 1968 in the Düsseldorf underground artists’ club Cream Cheese. Three so-called speakers had their wrists strapped to a steel table. Anatol used remote-controlled light signals to alternately ask them to speak or remain silent. This work from Museum Ostwall in Dortmund is combined with Martin Kippenberger’s painting We don’t have problems with disco door-waiters, if they don’t let us in, we don’t let them out (1986) from Museum Folkwang in Essen. With works by Emil Schumacher, Werner Gilles and Erich Mueller Kraus, the exhibition also looks back to the period immediately after the end of the Second World War.

THE DYNAMICS OF MOVEMENT IN SPACE AND TIME

In the themed room dedicated to ‘Dynamik’ (Dynamics), aspects of mobility and the dense road and motorway network in the Ruhr region are brought to mind through an entire series of works. For example, Hans-Christian Schink’s photograph of a large motorway bridge from Museum Küppersmühle in Duisburg is juxtaposed with Michael Sailstorfer’s installation Zeit ist keine Autobahn – Basel (2011) from Kunsthalle Recklinghausen. A car tyre rotating on a wall surface leaves a constantly growing pile of rubber abrasion behind. A photograph of tracks in the snow by Anton Stankowski from the 1930s from the collection of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and a lithograph by Katharina Grosse with gestural colour applications from Kunstmuseum Mülheim complete the compilation. Ideas of transience and permanence, mobility and standstill enter into an exciting dialogue here.

SHOWCASE ON CONSUMER CULTURE

The development of consumer behaviour from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day is the subject of the themed room addressing ‘Kauflust’ (Shopping mania). Two paintings by August Macke, Helle Frauen vor Hutladen (1913) from Osthaus Museum in Hagen and Modes: Frau mit Sonnenschirm vor Hutladen (1914) from Museum Folkwang in Essen show passers-by admiring the window displays of department stores and are early testimonies to early consumerism. The two works are combined with contemporary photographs by Gudrun Kemsa from the LUDWIGGALERIE Schloss Oberhausen, among others, whose series Apple Store I and Apple Store II (2013) show people reflected in the glass facades of today’s city centres. Photographs by Dietmar Riemann and Tata Ronkholz capture the shopping worlds of the 1980s and follow the flaneur’s gaze through the shop windows. The room is complemented by three ‘Horten honeycombs’ from Gustav-Lübcke-Museum in Hamm, ceramic tiles designed by Egon Eiermann, which adorned the facades of all branches of the Horten department store chain until the end of the 1970s and characterised the image of German city centres for decades.

SPRINGBOARD FOR INDIVIDUAL DISCOVERIES

21×21 not only provides the public with the unique opportunity to experience a multifaceted interplay of the 21 museum collections – but the special exhibition at Villa Hügel also offers an ideal introduction to discovering the unique museum landscape between the Rhine, Ruhr, Emscher and Lippe rivers on one’s own initiative and to explore the individual museums independently.

So head to the Ruhr region! Whether by car, bus, train, bike or on foot along the many hiking trails: if one wants to explore all 21 museums, stamina is needed. But the visitor will be rewarded. The evening view of the Tetrahedron in Bottrop or the Tiger and Turtle rollercoaster installation in Duisburg at sunset round off the museum tour.

COLLECTION HISTORY – ALSO IN DIGITAL FORM

The exhibition is complemented by an even more comprehensive digital presentation of the 21 RuhrKunstMuseen collections. The digital web app www.21×21.de with around 400 works of art has been online since 7 November 2024. Users can also find the digital ‘museum match’ here, which playfully compares personal preferences with the collections of the 21 art museums. The digital project was the initial spark for the exhibition at Villa Hügel and is also supported by the Krupp Foundation.

RUHRKUNSTMUSEEN NETWORK

Kunstmuseum Bochum | Kunstsammlungen der Ruhr-Universität Bochum: Museum moderner und zeitgenössischer Kunst | Kunstsammlungen der Ruhr-Universität Bochum: Situation Kunst mit Museum unter Tage | Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop | Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U | Lehmbruck Museum | MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst | Museum DKM | Museum Folkwang | Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen | Emil Schumacher Museum | Osthaus Museum Hagen | Gustav-Lübcke-Museum Hamm | Emschertal-Museum Herne, Städtische Galerie | Flottmann-Hallen Herne | Museum Haus Opherdicke | Skulpturenmuseum Marl | Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr | LUDWIGGALERIE Schloss Oberhausen | Kunsthalle Recklinghausen | Zentrum für Internationale Lichtkunst Unna | Märkisches Museum Witten

WWW.RUHRKUNSTMUSEEN.COM

ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME

The exhibition is accompanied by a varied supporting programme. From guided tours with curators and artists to lectures and panel discussions, various events are planned. Particularly noteworthy are the bus tours to all 21 RuhrKunstMuseen on Saturdays during the exhibition period. Information on ticket bookings, opening hours and the full programme will follow at www.villahuegel.de.

The exhibition “21 x 21. Die RuhrKunstMuseen auf dem Hügel” is a project by the RuhrKunstMuseen and is funded by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the RAG Foundation, and the Regionalverband Ruhr.

Contakt

Villa Hügel
Hügel 1 | 45133 Essen
+49 201 61 62 917
info@villahuegel.de
www.villahuegel.de

PROJECT-RELATED PRESS CONTACT
ARTPRESS
Ute Weingarten
Esther Franken
+49 (0)30 48 49 63 50
franken.artpress@uteweingarten.de
www.artpress-uteweingarten.de