Culture in Mönchengladbach
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Looking for and finding art
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Cora Strasbourg and Joshua Eckstein showed their photo walls at the adult education center.
Photo: belly, jana (jaba)
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Mönchengladbach Pictures, sculptures, installations. In the face of so much art, course visitors are forced to make a choice. A possible tour by many and a disappointed artist.
31 Ateliers, eleven Art Venues – the Paid content The 23rd edition of the art course offered a complex overview of creative work in Gladbach and at the same time presented all interested parties with an impossible task. It was almost impossible to visit all the exhibitions.
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“I plan on three to four stations,” says the visitor who had come to Marlene Dammers’ studio in Voosen. She is happy that cultural diversity is finally possible again after the corona pandemic. Marlene Dammers, who in addition to her paintings also exhibits the works of her three friends Barbara John, Yvonne Klaffke and Edith Küsterts in her studio, has been participating in the weekend of the open studios for years. “In previous years, I never had an empty day,” said the artist, whose studio extends to the entire attic of a farmhouse.
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The studios are as different as the genres. Karl-Heinz Heming said: “Wood is my material.” It is not so easy to discover him and his studio on Aachener Straße. The digital course guide is an advantage here. The studio is located behind a shop in a former workshop that can only be reached through a gate.
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Heming, like Dammers, is happy that the course is taking place again to make contact with those interested in art. In the past year and a half, he, who otherwise exhibits frequently, was only able to take part in two group exhibitions in Krefeld.
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Robert Heijkoop would have liked to take part in the course this year. “I’ve been forgotten”, he complains in his studio under the roof of a residential building in the city center, “after I’ve always participated in the years before.” His address is assigned to the name of another artist in the digital course guide, namely Yolanda Encabo. Your actual studio is printed in the leaflet about the course, which was also sent to Heijkoop in large numbers. He himself is nowhere to be found.
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“Robert Heijkoop is actually a good painter,” Ingo Wegerl comments on the mishap. It invites you in a completely different environment. His studio on Rotdornweg in Rheydt is in a residential building. He exhibits his paintings in the spacious living room. Like his colleagues, he got through the Corona period pretty unscathed. “We usually work alone and in quiet seclusion anyway,” says Wegerl, who is in his studio every day. He’s only taking part in the course for the second time; different from Ora Avital. She is almost part of the inventory of the cultural office’s event and sees the positive side of the corona pandemic: “There was less distraction.” Nevertheless, she is looking forward to her visitors: “People want out.”
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The first visitors are already standing in the entrance of her studio next to the elementary school on Eickener Straße when she is still busy with construction work. “Three, four stations, more are not possible,” says the visual artist. Then the receptivity diminishes, especially since every station usually does not stop at a brief glimpse. “The visitors want to start a conversation, we want to talk to them about our work,” she says. Ora Avital immediately turned the entire house into her studio. She has exhibited her installations and paintings on all floors.
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“It’s enough for me,” said a visitor to her studio early on Saturday evening after all the art on offer in the city. “The battery is empty.” He sees a spirit of optimism in the course. “Little by little, more and more cultural life is coming into the city.”
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