The NRW Art Collection

Anyone who is out and about in Düsseldorf automatically follows in the footsteps of Joseph Beuys. The global artist led a public life in the city and his routes and locations are well documented. At Grabbeplatz, in front of the Kunsthalle, his pupil Anatol hollowed out the dugout canoe for the joint crossing of the Rhine. Opposite, in the K20, the most important posthumous exhibitions can be seen regularly: 2010/2011 "Joseph Beuys. Parallel Processes" and now "Everyone is an Artist - Cosmopolitan Exercises with Joseph Beuys" to mark his 100th birthday. Gerrit Terstiege took a look around the permanent collection at K20 for us - a Beuys show without a time limit.

Black, curved granite: the façade of the Kunstsammlung NRW dominates Düsseldorf's Grabbeplatz with confident elegance. It was a strange twist of fate that Joseph Beuys and this great museum dedicated to 20th century art practically replaced each other: in 1986, the year Beuys died, the building was opened by the then Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker. This was only a few weeks after the artist's death - and perhaps even had a comforting effect for some.

Palazzo shelves fill an entire room

In addition to many major works of modern art, from Paul Klee to Max Ernst and Jackson Pollock, the art collection naturally also includes key works by Joseph Beuys. Perhaps the most important one fills an entire room: "Palazzo Regale" ("Royal Palace") from 1985: seven brass panels coated with gold varnish hang on the walls like pictures and yet are more like blind mirrors that correspond with two massive display cases, as Beuys also had their cubic frames made of brass. At first glance, the objects gathered in them appear to have been placed there casually, yet they have been carefully selected. They are unquestionably closely related to the natural and man-made objects that often enter into a dialog in the artist's work and appear to have been transformed by him.

But the Kunstsammlung NRW also owns a very small, less solemn, even funny work by Beuys: the "Capri Battery", in which he simply inserted the integrated plug of an angled light bulb socket into a lemon. The screwed-in light bulb, round, opaque and bright yellow, looks like the artificial counterpart to the tropical fruit. But if you know that citric acid can be used to generate electricity, it becomes clear what Beuys was actually aiming for: a symbol of nature as a source of power.

Where Warhol photographed Beuys

Incidentally, "Joke, satire, irony and deeper meaning" is the name of the playwright Christian Dietrich Grabbe's most successful play to date, after which the square in front of the art collection was named - all possible interpretations for Beuys' small "Capri Battery". And there is something else that connects Grabbeplatz with the artist. Directly opposite the K20 - the museum's handy abbreviation - he met Andy Warhol in the rooms of Hans Mayer's gallery in 1979. A now legendary meeting between two dissimilar artists in the middle of Düsseldorf. This shy question from Warhol to Beuys is documented: "May I photograph you?" -He was allowed to.

Text: Gerrit Terstiege

Gerrit Terstiege writes for magazines such as art, Monopol and Mint and always enjoys writing about art and music from Düsseldorf.

Photos Gallery: Everyone is an artist, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2021, Photo: Achim Kukulies

Photo cover picture: Düsseldorf Tourismus

You can find out more about Beuys in our Beuys special.