A treasure hunt on the art express

By the way, the first building on our timetable is also currently undergoing some changes. The Gustav Lübcke Museum is just a stone’s throw away from the magnificent Hamm Central Station. Completed in 1993, the building has long since been renovated. It looks quite inviting when viewed from the forecourt. The entrance hall with its wide ramps, iconic lights as eye-catchers, elegant wooden walls, and a café has a light and Scandinavian air – wow! This architectural nonchalance is hardly surprising since the two architects Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert hailed from Denmark. We are going to encounter these accomplished museum builders again at the Bochum Art Museum along our route. The building in Hamm appears very spacious – and is constantly changing. Director Thomas Schmäschke is already preparing for the next remodelling. He wants that all guests, including the very youngest, enjoy their visit – and he manages to do just that. Two groups are visiting on a Thursday morning: a school class and a day-care centre group. Their pleasure is clearly audible. Schmäschke and his team make it easy for anyone who is interested, with the Gustav-Lübcke-Museum uniquely covering about 13,000 years of cultural history in its five departments. 4,000 square metres of exhibition space ensure a very relaxed atmosphere. The chair collection in the department of applied arts is adjacent to an artistic vase created using state-of-the-art 3D printing. Paintings from the past are placed side by side with a spherical labyrinth from the present day, where balls are made to roll by the Us and Os sung by the guests. A musical exhibition currently hosted here invites visitors to join in here and there.

A golden U is visible above the German football museum even from the platform. “U” stands for Union Brewery, though it might as well be for “unbelievable”. The old fermentation and storage building has long since turned into a cultural lighthouse with its seven floors full of cultural charge. The foyer contains an overview, the ground floor a cinema, a bistro, and an immersive space for experiments between analogue and digital experiences. The building’s dimensions are unique. We are drawn to the escalators and there are quite a few of them.

Rather than taking us to the exhibitions at Dortmund University or the bustling HMKV, the Hartware MedienKunstVerein, a very successful centre for contemporary media art, they are carrying us to the Museum Ostwall now. It’s the main collection in Dortmund. Five escalator trips later, we have reached the door to art. Something is different here, though. Gold frame follows on gold frame in a classical collection of paintings that we will get back to in a moment. Beyond it, however, is a gigantic wall full of A4-format pictures – painted by children in one of the building’s workshops. An open workshop space makes it possible to experience the process of art. And a little later, wide walls with hundreds of colourful sticky notes collect ideas and contributions for desired changes to the building from the museum’s citizens’ advisory council. Put up together like this, they look like a work of art in themselves.

While there’s an underground line from Bochum main station, we opt for the 15-minute walk through the city centre instead, crossing the Nordring in the direction of Bochum’s excursion district as we head for the art museum in the city park. Just a few steps more, and we would be sitting in the planetarium with a view of the stars, in a pedalo on the gondola pond, or visiting the zoo’s “North Sea Worlds”.

Beyond the revolving door, things get Nordic in the art museum built by Danish architects Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert until 1983 as well. Though created a decade before the Lübcke Museum in Hamm, the similarity between the two is impossible to deny as a white, spacious ramp elegantly opens up the floors here too, and lighting once again serves as a major aspect of design. Bo and Wohlert designed even the lights for their legendary Louisiana Museum in Denmark and put the design pieces that are in high demand today in their Bochum building as well.

This kind of architecture is “human and cosy”, says deputy director Julia Lerch Zajączkowska. She adds: “I hear even people who don’t like going to museums say that they feel quite at home here.” Why might that be? Large windows offer views across the street into the city park, and into the adjacent private gardens on the other side. Skylights reveal blue skies, rendering the interior quite bright. 9000 white tiles made of bisque porcelain with black graphic painting add to the effect. Danish artist Mogens Andersen applied the gigantic work to a ten by 20 metre wall surface right behind the ramp, setting the mood for contemporary art presented in temporary exhibitions here in the “new building” since 1983 now.

Artist Theresa Weber is spreading an organic landscape while we are visiting. She is bringing (a) “Chaosmos” into the house, as her exhibition is titled. Director Noor Mertens and her team keep an eye on the up-and-coming artists since they want to offer plenty of space for everyone to make some discoveries here. They want to enable a democratic experience of art in a building that is “not a temple of representation” where structure and content is concerned, as Julia Lerch Zajączkowska puts it. On the contrary, they want to create a workshop atmosphere and will soon enable many citizens to contribute to the new presentation of the collection.

Take your pick at the Essen station: One stop along the underground route and a short walk, or just a slightly longer walk, away, you can find “The Big Names”, an important keyword for your visit. The big names – the truly big ones in art – aren’t the only big names this excellent place has to offer. Its rooms, its works .... Let’s start out in the generous first-class foyer by architect David Chipperfield, who has long been honoured by being called a “star” and receiving the Pritzker Prize for good reason. Airy, bright, and dignified, every room we enter leaves enough space for this impression between the works and the space they are kept in. The 24 rooms in turn follow a great theme with a collection titled “New Worlds” and sorting extraordinarily rich treasures by individual themes, irrespective of era, style, and material used. Albers from Bottrop sets the room’s mood with his “Homage to the Square”, brilliantly reflected by Frank Stella, among other people, in the darkly black dance of squares found in “Tomlinson Court Park I”. This is placed side by side with a wall installation and a sculpture in a mixture that has given Folkwang a leading role in the 2019 reorganisation and that continues to impress with its quality. There is video art, light art, oil, photography, sculpture, and mixed media. “We want to evoke a new way of perception,” Folkwang spokeswoman Anka Grosser explains the highly varied selection. The visitors’ book in the foyer tells us that the museum is successful at what it does.

Folkwang’s founder Karl-Ernst Osthaus was far ahead of his time as well. His collection, originating upriver along the Ruhr in Hagen, continues to form the basis of the present-day collection, brought to Essen after his death to delight viewers here. Osthaus was the first person far and wide to appreciate and collect what is called “The Big Names” today. One of them is Van Gogh’s “The Harvest, Cornfield with Reapers” from 1889, acquired by Osthaus in 1902 already. Is this what Wilhelm Morgner was thinking of when he painted his “Man on the Hill” in 1911? Van Gogh’s “Reaper” is different. Also placed centre left, it seems powerless against the virtually mountainous cornfield under the glaring sun. The French picture-book landscapes are visible far off in the distance.

But let's start again from the beginning. In the opening exhibition (until 25 January), what is otherwise separate is combined to great effect. The municipal collection of paintings, the collection of prints and drawings by Mülheim doctor Karl G. Themel (this is how the second largest Zille collection outside of Berlin came to Mülheim) and the highlight collection of a Nobel Prize winner: Karl Ziegler moved from Halle an der Saale to Mülheim to the Max Plank Institute for Coal Research and brought a church tower with him. Feininger's "Red Tower II" (1930). What adorns an information board in front of the church in Halle hangs on the wall in front of us as an original. A marvellous picture!

We find fellow Nobel Prize winners in the largest work in the first hall - which also tells of relocations. Forced ones. Arthur Kaufmann's "Spiritual Emigration" (1938-1964) shows 38 personalities who fled from Germany to the USA to escape the Nazis: Einstein, the Manns, Schönberg, Klemperer, Weill... Kaufmann from Mülheim is also included. He also left. "It's printed in many history books," says Bauer-Kersken. However, the canvas size of 2.10 by 3.40 metres means that the triptych cannot be skimmed over. Standing in front of it, you start to think.

Next to it: Highlights from the first half of the 20th century: Kandinsky's "Counterweights" (1926), Beckmann's "Quappi with Parrot" (1936), Ernst's "The Inner Face: Egg" (1929), Campendonk's "Little Cat". Plus Kirchner, Schlemmer and Rohlfs. The treasure trove of art here in Mülheim is really very impressive.

Everything just seems like a great fit here. No, we’re not talking about the short walk from Duisburg main station, which is just getting a makeover, to the museum. We are talking about the immediately, striking harmony between architecture and art here, in a glass-and-concrete construction with hard concrete surfaces, pebble-ornamented walls, flat and curved shapes, with large glass surfaces added in. The Lehmbruck Museum is special indeed: It is a work of architectural art, created by a son for his father. Architect Manfred Lehmbruck (1913-1992) seemed to know precisely which sculptures made by his father Wilhelm (1881-1919) should be placed where in the building, creating an architectural model before construction commenced and placing the various sculptures in it on very small scale. They have been in place since the museum opened back in 1964. “It hasn’t really changed since then,” says museum spokesman Andreas Benedict. And it fits well: For example, the “Große Stehende” that we just saw at the Folkwang is resting under the cone of light of a round dome in the roof here. They call her the “Duisburger”.

The world’s most famous Lehmbruck sculpture, the kneeling woman, is right within sight, however. Talking in front of her seems inappropriate. She is kneeling there, staying very still. Why is that? Is she receiving an angelic message? Is she a dancer? After all, she was Lehmbruck’s first work after he arrived in Paris, the metropolis of art of that time. It’s where his road to becoming a great artist began as he started stretching proportions and creating unmistakable works. He turned into a role model for many then. The “kneeling woman” in front of us here is a plaster cast and remains the focal point even though she is not placed at the centre of the room.

The building’s other wing, the glass hall, holds all things coming after Wilhelm Lehmbruck, as designed by his son. A large machine by Tinguely is rattling away here, Rebecca Horn’s forms sway gently, and a Luther is reflecting us. They are placed side by side with Moore, Cragg, Brancusi, Beuys, Ernst, and – of course – Giacometti. He’s another unique one. His works once caused long queues in front of this magnificent house during a special exhibition.

A third wing, the newest one, usually holds the fine arts, except while special exhibitions are organised there. Kirchner, Rottluff, Beckmann, Mueller, Macke...., we are amazed at the value of this collection. One even has the price on it: “80,000 DM”, it says. Beuys is also present here, of course. His astonishing connection to Lehmbruck is best experienced on site. We need a break now, though.

The Lehmbruck may not offer a good opportunity for this, but it’s not far to the perfect location. After all this impressive art, we are looking for something on a par with it served to us and find it in a slice of cream cake. Café Dobbelstein is a Duisburg institution. A confectioner’s shop that is unique to Duisburg’s “Kö”, the Königstraße shopping street, even it contains some sculptures of its own. The fountain mile with seven water-spouting works by Niki de Saint Phalle and others is passing by the location. The “Kö” starts begins close to the main railway station. For us it’s time to “Stand clear as the train arrives”. We’re moving on.

From Düsseldorf main station, we are taking the underground train towards the old town. The “Steinstraße/Königsallee” stop might distract a traveller, but anyone who manages to stay in place will quickly reach Heinrich-Heine-Allee by underground. Grabbeplatz around the corner from it has a curved black granite façade rising to considerable heights. The entrance area is not overly spacious, leaving any sort of generous space strictly to the pieces of art. We are visiting the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, or more specifically, the K20 with the state’s own collection focused on the 20^th century, put together by founding director Schmalenbach for almost three decades until 1990.

He seems to have accepted the legacy of Johanna Ey (1864-1947), called “Mother Ey” by the people of Düsseldorf. A few steps away from the K20, a bronze statue marked with her name is standing on the square, just as she is watching us from alert eyes from the wall of the K20. She almost seems to be majestically blooming in her purple dress, under the Spanish comb that appears to have slipped a little askew, and it’s not by chance that it is looking like an insignia. This is how Otto Dix (1891-1969) eternalised Mother Ey, the woman who came to art by chance as a bakery trader turned into a highly respected gallery owner. The stories say that she used to support young artists from the neighbouring academy with her big heart. They thanked her for it by turning her into what likely is the most-frequently painted woman of her time. Dix captured her particularly well in 1924. The wall text describes her likeness as “robustly close to life”, and the image is not one the viewer is likely to forget about quickly. She was such a strong, impressive woman in the art scene! This is not a picture to be missed here in the art city of Düsseldorf.

Of course, “Portrait of the Art Dealer Johanna Ey” is one of the best works in Dix’s oeuvre as well as one of the best pieces from the genre of New Objectivity. Ey’s passion for art, for life as an artist, and for art education may be considered an obligation for the museum. “Our works can be found as references for art trends in all reference books,” says marketing manager Lotz-Kowal. Buying the best was the goal back then. Being the best at presenting things continues to be it. The large works dominate the “Amerikanersaal”, almost taking the viewer’s breath away. Jackson Pollock’s “Number 32” is placed at the centre, an insane work of abstract expressionism, it is one of his pouring works or drip paintings to fall in love with immediately. Its dimensions make it a rarity worldwide. Rothko, Richter, Trockel, Warhol .... Picasso’s “Woman in front of the mirror” is another one of the museum’s highlights when it is exhibited there. “It is the most frequently requested work in the collection,” says spokeswoman Susanne Fernandes-Silva. It is in demand for exhibitions worldwide and just as popular with the people of Düsseldorf. It is placed side by side with Feininger, Klee, Dalí, Bacon, Matisse, Marc, Ernst ... You can’t get any more than this, can you? director Susanne Gaensheimer is currently filling the “gaps in the collection” in classical and post-war modernism, as it is called, with women artists and non-European art. The collection is subject to constant growth still. For today, we’re happy with what is already on the walls. We will need some time to process this great art!

The express bus takes eight minutes to reach Schloss Morsbroich from “Leverkusen centre”. It seems to be just another typical baroque castle at first glance. First glances can be misleading, though. Morsbroich is a different kind of pleasure palace. It’s a maison de plaisance in an artistic atmosphere. The first indication of this hovers above the tree on the access way, where a bulging balloon is labelled: “Live is great”. The sagging counterpart to it is caught in the oak behind the castle, saying “Life isn’t funny”. Artist Werner Reiterer may have been alluding to the fact that couples often go in single at the front and come out married at the back? The amount of joy and humour actually wafting through the castle is evident in several locations, e.g., when one spots the heavy antler chandelier in the hunting room under the usual light and airy Calder mobile. What an ironic combination. Morsbroich is just the place to satiate our desire for art.

Just like the mobile, everything else here is in motion as well. Years of little attention have finally ended, and the park is subject to further development. Temporary exhibitions should be visited quickly, or they will be gone again. The high-calibre permanent collection remains, but it’s not hung. It’s just not that simple, what with the Leverkusen collection numbering 6000 works and the castle not even close to the size required for it. The solution is wooden and located on the ground floor. A mini depot made of wooden slats contains 30 pre-selected works. Choose one, and have it put prominently on display for a week.

This is an extremely exciting approach for us, and we are resigned to the fact that the tiger is currently asleep, rather than prowling the house. Painted by Gerhard Richter in 1965, it is the proverbial spot of colour of the house, and probably the collection’s most famous work. If you want to see it, you can sign up in advance and hope to find it in the pre-selection. Münter’s white horse hangs has been put up during our visit – which is a pretty good substitute.

The building has an extensive history of its own. Museum Schloss Morsbroich was the first of its kind back in 1951. More specifically, it was the first museum for contemporary art to be founded in Germany after the war. Along with the Kunstmuseum Krefeld (link), it didn’t have a lot of competition to deal with far and wide. As a result, the great names of contemporary art travelled to Leverkusen, exhibited, met, and created new things. Morsbroich continues to enjoy an illustrious reputation among the international world of art today, and it is once again developing the same anew for the art-loving international visitors – and quite rightly so. The presence of art extends almost right into the present day. What triumph has currently brought Leverkusen into the media? “It’s hot off the press,” jokes collection curator Dr Thekla Zell about the picture placed near the entrance, showing the Leverkusen football stadium painted in acrylic on wood. It was just finished and hung, letting enthusiasm for the championship title spilling over into the castle. (Antje Schiffers “BayArena | Bayer 04 Leverkusen”, 2024 Oil on canvas, 110 x 85 cm)

An unpleasant discussion regarding the museum’s future that took place few years ago has long ceased. The small museum team led by director Jörg van den Berg is very actively working on its future today. The municipal centre is considered a “field of experimentation” for citizens and all visitors alike. The new staging of the castle park is very transparent as well. Artist duo Christoph Schäfer and Margit Czenki asked for contributions, putting up, a pretty wish box for the audience. They will soon start putting plans into practice. “We let visitors take a look at how we come up with ideas,” says collection curator Dr Thekla Zell, explaining how she works and telling of meetings in the hunting room where members of the public can look over the team’s shoulders. This leads to new approaches and unusual ideas alike. “If something doesn’t work, we will just change the approach,” Zell states as a matter of course. This amount of openness and willingness to experiment arouses curiosity. We think that there seems to be something really good going on here, and we are planning to come back again soon. But now it’s time for us, as the express bus is approaching again.

What a panorama, with the crane houses, the towers of the Romanesque churches, and the Musical Dome. Either side of the train offers a sort of instant Cologne view on the very slow-moving Hohenzollernbrücke bridge. The six-track bridge across the Rhine happens to be Germany’s largest railway bridge – and there’s always a train rushing past. Is the proverbial Cologne “Jefööhl!” (feeling) spilling over here already? Maybe not quite yet, but we’re pulling into the main station already. Museum Ludwig is on our schedule for today. Something is literally standing in our way, though: the cathedral – and a great many construction site fences with it. This is particularly an issue in the centre of Cologne, where many cultural treasures are being built or made fit for the future.

The construction site fences guide us to the museum. Did I say construction site fences? This is actually an open-air exhibition! Large illustrations of Cologne’s art treasures from many eras are printed on it. The pre-Roman and Roman ones, the medieval one, and something we might call the time of Ludwig. Cologne’s Mona Lisa is waiting for us: Roy Lichtenstein’s extra-large blonde comic girl. Her questioning gaze is directed at the main entrance. Following it, we find ourselves back in front of another railway station quickly. This one is the Perpignan one, in a major work by Dalí. Sized three by four metres, it is unusually large for his oeuvre – and highly biographical, showing him probably falling out of a dream. It’s quite impressive. Dalí’s Surrealist colleague Ernst also has St Mary chastise boy Jesus. In front of three witnesses – including the painter himself in a picture that was deemed scandalous at the time. Today, it’s silently hanging in the Ludwig.

Irene and Peter Ludwig created this collection, skilfully transforming their chocolate fortune into treasures of art that are truly invaluable today. Back in 1976, they donated part of their 20^th century collection to the city of Cologne, on the condition of having a museum built in their name. The number of names of studios they often bought the works from directly just kept on growing.

The result is highly impressive. The Museum Ludwig brings together the “Who’s Who” of 20^th century art history, hanging and standing side by side in a collection that contains more than 800 Picassos alone (including some prints and ceramics). It has the largest Pop Art collection outside the USA, and the early addition of the collection of lawyer Haubrich also added an excellent collection of Expressionist works by Kirchner, Pechstein, Macke, and Co.

How can these superlatives compete with on-site experience, though? One can encounter the giant Rosenquist (Star Thief, 1980), the even larger Léger (Die Taucher, 1942), major works of Gerhard Richter such as Ema (1966), Paul Klee’s “Hauptwege und Nebenwege” (1929), and Warhol, Warhol, Warhol. This includes the Jackie Triptych (1964) and the double Elvis (1963). Take a deep breath. – it's high time for a break.

“Getting to NRW more beautifully” is the name of a joint funding programme of the railways and the state to benefit railway stations. They certainly could be prettier, as everyone arriving there will likely agree. The foundations are good, though. The historical station building in Düren has been called a “city-defining monument” a century and a half after it first opened its doors. After all, Düren is far from being some remote village centre. ICE trains to and from Berlin also stop here along their travels between Aachen and Cologne.

We are walking about one kilometre to the museum. This 15-minute walk leads past the remains of the 12^th-century city wall and takes us to a square in a somewhat undefined shape. Originally meant for a beautiful combination of theatre, church, and museum, the war has only left it with the remains of the church and a battered museum. “Düren was almost entirely destroyed. Only thirteen houses survived the war. The Leopold Hoesch Museum was one of them,” museum spokeswoman Helen Wobbe explains. The building from 1905 has a magnificently playful overall appearance, with its neo-baroque and art nouveau styles that are pleasing to the eye. The heavy entrance door opens as if by magic. Come on in!

The historical entrance hall welcomes us with charismatically. A commemorative plaque honours founder Hoesch as a patron who had long since moved his company headquarters to Dortmund, where “Hoesch” grew to be synonymous with steel. Originally planned as a universal museum, it has long been dedicated to art exclusively, offering what may be the perfect setting for it. Paths inside the building are quite short. The museum’s “hall of fame” is just a step away from the entrance hall, or at least that’s how it feels when visiting. Portraits are crowded on the walls just like in St Petersburg. Hoesch himself can be found among works by Hofer and Kokoschka, Modersohn-Becker and Mueller. Then there is a pretty young woman among them. “That one is hanging here at the moment,” says Helen Wobbe, pointing slightly upwards. It may be the Düren citizens’ favourite picture. The “Mädchen mit roter Schleife” (Girl with red bow”) from 1909 is a fixed reference point for her in the collection. Seeing her makes a person feel right at home. Reduced top noting but basic features, as is typical of Jawlensky, the painting enchants with its wide eyes and leaves us puzzling over the expressive use of colour. The depicted girl looks at us from behind her oversized bow, fitting building’s charisma and further enhancing it.

We move on from there. The collection is quite impressive, with Kandinsky’s “White Dot” being afforded just the space it needs. Schlemmer is represented here, as is Dix, who is with an impressive self-portrait. A miniature Macke meets Werefkin, an early Trunk encounters Geiger. Kirchner’s “Tobel” can be found here just like Schmidt-Rottluff, whose “Ostsee” (Baltic Sea) was once restituted as it should have been and eventually returned into this collection. Uecker’s only seemingly undulating nails have an actually moving Piene among them: This is likely the last light room that the Zero artist set up himself in 2010. It grants brief pause for the eyes in this the festival of light.

“We can’t host a solo exhibition for any of them, but we have examples of everyone,” Helen Wobbe describes the collection. That includes Niki de Saint Phalle, though the “Nana” from Düren (we have just seen one in Cologne’s Ludwig) has just been moved into storage. Constant movement is present in the Leopold Hoesch Museum as well – and in the collection itself. A contemporary Sailstorfer is juxtaposed with a historical Erbslöh and Tim Ullrich’s very recent acquisition inspires with “100$ shredded". Humour can be found here, too, disappearing again immediately in Anja Dorn’s “Vom Leben in Industrielandschaften” (Life in industrial landscapes) (2018). She focuses her work on the nearby open-cast mine and its traces. It’s an inspiring combination – no less so than the old building with the new white cube building itself that gives the museum space for temporary exhibitions.

We are overwhelmed by the quality and abundance already before we have even reached the graphics exhibition – the mixture and the atmosphere make sure of it. A small team with a great collection ensures complete enjoyment of art. This doesn’t end at the doors to the café that Klaus Föttinger turned into an art location in its own right with the help of “Saigon Wraps and other Natural Phenomenons” (2010). Next, we are looking at the graphics, where the museum’s registrar was allowed to run wild and hang her 60 favourites from among the 10,000 pages she really manages on her own. This subjective choice includes Ensor, Rembrandt, and Man Ray, further confirming the passion with which work is done here.

Finally, we return to the entrance hall, where colourful birds are still flying. Rückriem designed them for the dome. Strictly geometrical based on mathematical calculations as follows: ... Oh, let the friendly staff explain it to you. It’s quite inspiring. We have to fly as well now. We need to be back at the main station in a quarter of an hour.