Gregor Schneider: House u r 2026

At the heart of his work is the ‘Haus u r’ complex, which he has been developing since the 1980s and which ranks among the most influential site-specific works in contemporary art.

Haus u r has been internationally renowned at least since Schneider was awarded the Golden Lion in 2001 for *Totes Haus u r* in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Since then, installations from this ongoing body of work have been exhibited in numerous major museums worldwide.

The Haus u r on Unterheydener Straße in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt has formed the core of Gregor Schneider’s artistic practice since the 1980s. It is not merely a place, but also a material and a process. Alongside his ‘space repository’ – his ‘encyclopaedia of spaces’ – Schneider has continuously expanded, transformed and duplicated the building. The artist, born in Rheydt, is deeply rooted in the region through his work. Time and again, he incorporates the region’s social, architectural and landscape structures into his work – from his own four walls, through Goebbels’ birthplace in his neighbourhood, to the Garzweiler lignite mining area, which he used as a source of materials from an early stage.

The central medium of Schneider’s artistic practice is the construction of spaces within existing spaces. Not in the form of dioramas, but complete built spaces consisting of walls, floors and ceilings. These spaces are so closely modelled on reality that they are often barely recognisable as constructions added by the artist. Schneider works with duplicates of rooms, people and objects, as well as with reconstructions of buildings to which he has ‘no direct access’, as he emphasises. Alongside these constructed spaces, he seeks further approaches to his constructed reality through film, photography and – more recently – via live streams and digital scans.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the ‘Haus u r 1985–today’ body of work, the exhibition ‘Haus u r 2026’ once again places this central body of work in the spotlight. At the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, built spaces, sculptures, photographs, films and live-stream projections from *Haus u r* are brought together.

The exhibition follows a spatial journey through everyday architectures – from bathrooms and living rooms to cellars and storage rooms – and offers visitors the opportunity to lose themselves in the multi-layered and ever-evolving body of work that is Haus u r.

Taking apparent normality and familiarity as his starting point, Schneider creates situations that feel both familiar and unsettling. The spatial shifts and duplications make Haus u r appear as a system that is situated simultaneously in Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf and is characterised by constant transformation. Visitors are plunged into a state of perceptual uncertainty that touches upon central aspects of reality, memory and construction.

To mark the 40th anniversary of Haus u r, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is presenting a comprehensive spatial experience in which architecture, sculpture, photography and video merge into a dense, cohesive whole. (Source: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf)

Exhibition dates: 17 October 2026 to 17 January 2027