Mareike Engelke - Duisburg
the inner harbour and more
“I secretly love this city with all its flaws”
In the middle of the millennial years, illustrator Mareike Engelke was drawn to Duisburg because of its geographical situation. Chance changed into love, not just for her husband and their two chubby cats with whom she lives together. Mareike was able to get her hands on one of ‘these’ diplomas from Krefeld before jumping head on into her job. Today, she works as a freelancer, sometimes alone, wearing socks at home, sometimes at the studio house directly at the industrial harbour, overviewing the harbour cranes with 14 other members of the creative industry. Her works are childishly naïve but never superficial.
Next to publications in different magazines and publishers, her first picture book “Vor den 7 Bergen” (engl: In front of the 7 mountains) is to be published by the Kunstanstifter Verlag next year. Outside of work she gets to know her adopted home and explores it on her bike. “I love to roam about through the districts, abandoned or very industrial locations”. She also loves to “pursuit every creative movement within the city with the utmost curiosity. I work on getting to know every other creative worker of the city”.
Text: Jan Kempinski
Foto: Bernhard Handick
The bananahouse in Ruhrort
The façade of the house in Karlstraße 38 in the quarter on the right-side of the Rhine in the Ruhrort district of Duisburg, shines in bright yellow. In the midst of his otherwise inconspicuous neighbourhood, today, 15 years after its transformation by Cologne artist Thomas Baumgärtel, the banana house is still unique: its owner, Dieter Siegel-Pieper, of the well-known paint and varnish company 'Pieper' and collector of modern art, collaborated with Baumgärtel and wanted to create a striking attraction and a mark in Ruhrort with this redesigned façade - for the curious, the artists and the art-interested.
Text: Carla Kaspari
Karlstraße 38 47119 Duisburg
Café and hairdresser Glück
In order to see Duisburg's attractive cultural side and/or to revitalise your hairstyle, it is worth taking a detour to café (and hairdresser) Glück at the edge of the pedestrian zone. The small but cozy seating area is separated by a glass wall from the adjoining hair salon in which Christiane and Alois want to seize the opportunity to create happiness (Glück) with detailed advice and skin-compatible products. Birgit serves coffee from a small private roasting plant in Neuss, organically cultivated cocoa, and the tea comes from a specialist dealer. Freshly prepared sweet and hearty (partly vegan) food at affordable prices and a warm ambience make the impression perfect: If happiness means contentment and harmony, you will find it here.
Text: Carla Kaspari
Foto: Myriam Kasten Photographie
Obermauerstraße 39 47051 Duisburg http://www.du-im-glueck.de/
Minimal Art meets Ai Weiwei
Close to Duisburg Central Station, the DKM Museum is located in a quiet side street. The name of the private exhibition centre comes from the initials of founders Dirk Krämer and Klaus Maas, whose pieces, collected for around 40 years, are on display as a permanent exhibition in the purist 1960s building. Following the "lines of still beauty", the visitor can look forward to a presentation that shows contemporary European art, ancient and contemporary art from the Orient to the Far East and from ancient Egypt, vases from over 5.000 years of cultural history as well as classical and contemporary photography, and can look for similarities in the visual language of the exhibits: minimalism, meditation and timelessness can also be regarded as a principle of the museum; therefore, written or audible explanations of the pieces are omitted. Regular alternating exhibitions also fit in with the guiding principle of the house.
Current Exhibitions:
„Shin Hanga – Japanische Landschaften“ (Japanese Landscapes) – Sven Drühl, until 10.01.2016
„antagomorph“ – Gereon Krebber, until 05.03.2017
Text: Carla Kaspari
Güntherstraße 13 47051 Duisburg http://www.museum-dkm.de
Art is for everyone
Less than a 500 meter walk from the DKM Museum, in the middle of the Immanuel-Kant-Park, lies the Lehmbruck Museum. In the sculpture garden in the park, more than 40 large sculptures by artists such as Meret Oppenheim or Henry Moore, surround the architecturally outstanding postwar construction of the museum of international sculpture and already underline its philosophy that the borders between art and nature, public space and enclosed space should be blurred, and that the Museum should be a place for all. Inside, the visitors can see the development of modern sculpture, impressively displayed on the basis of Wilhelm Lehmbruck's legacy. With works by Ernst, Dalì, Picasso or Giacometti, the cross-border theme continues throughout the presentation, and regular events and changing exhibitions complement Lehmbruck's leitmotif: art is for everyone.
Current Exhibitions:
„Im Studio – Wilhelm Lehmbruck“, until 06. August 2017
„SCULPTURE 21ST: DANIA DAKIĆ“, 26. January 2017 – 19. March 2017
Text: Carla Kaspari
Düsseldorfer Str. 51 47051 Duisburg http://www.lehmbruckmuseum.de
The inner harbour of Duisburg
Almost hanseatic feelings come up during a walk through the inner harbour of Duisburg. The charm of the brick buildings as relics of the former transshipment centre for grain, characterise the mile, which today combines culture, work, living and leisure. Thus, one of the historical storage buildings houses the Landesarchiv NRW, the documents of which can be studied free of charge in the library's reading room by those who are interested. In architectural contrast to the Landesarchiv, a bit further on, the Five Boats are located at the bank: an imposing office complex, designed by English star architect Nicholas Grimshaw, providing approximately 22.000 m² of office space. On the opposite bank, the Garten der Erinnerung (the garden of memory) can be found within the Old Town Park. Israeli sculptor Dani Karavan developed a total artwork of sculptural architecture here, partly built out of leftover building material from demolished harbour buildings. At the same time, it functions as a "social plastic", offering seating and usable space for harbour visitors. On the edge of this garden, the Jewish community centre is based: a building complex with a Synagogue, which corresponds architecturally to the style of the park. It is located not far from the old synagogue in the Junkernstraße, which was destroyed in the Pogrom night of 1938.
Text: Carla Kaspari
Foto: Edwin Juran
Hansegracht 10 47051 Duisburg