
‘Dark Star Backyard’ at the Bilker Bunker – artist Anys Reimann on identity, dreams and good eating
Interview
“I can’t stop asking questions”
The artist Anys Reimann is showing her exhibition "Dark Star Backyard" in the Bilker Bunker. Düsseldorf plays a central role in the artist's career. She completed her studies at the renowned Academy of Fine Arts and was awarded the city's 2023 Fine Arts Prize. Born in 1965, the artist, who has lived in Düsseldorf since childhood, has established herself as an exciting voice in contemporary art. With her multi-layered works, which include collages, sculptures and paintings, Reimann explores themes such as identity, external attribution and corporeality. Her leitmotif "Layers of Meaning" is reflected in her art, which interweaves personal experiences with collective stories. As the daughter of a German mother and a West African father, Reimann deals intensively with her identity as an "Afro-Peasant". Her works deconstruct social assumptions and open up new perspectives on gender, sexuality and cultural affiliation.

Your career has been extremely varied. How did you find your way into art?
I always wanted to be an artist. My father was a freelance photographer and I've been photographing and collaging for as long as I can remember. When I told my mother about my career aspirations, she simply replied: "There are no black female artists!". That was the trigger for a very long search for how I could express myself: I became a make-up artist, did a bookbinding internship, a carpentry apprenticeship, learned furniture restoration, studied interior design and worked as a freelance product designer. In between, I traveled around Germany with the Roncalli circus and did props and wardrobe. Eventually I returned to Düsseldorf.
After doing all these different things, you ended up studying at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts. How did that come about?I've always had a lot to do with artists, many of my friends were artists. The Academy of Arts rejected me at first, when I was 18, and so I started painting and making collages just for myself. Friends encouraged me to put my art on show. In 2011, when my children were old enough, I just wanted to find out whether I was on the right path artistically and tried applying for the Academy again. This time I got in!

Was there a particular moment when you realised: Now I am an artist?
After I graduated from the Academy, Professor Ellen Gallagher said to me: “You are portraying life. It was like a gift for me. An eye-opener. Until then, I had just made art by intuition, but that was the moment it really hit me. I needed this validation because of the great insecurity that my mother had subconsciously made me feel. That already sat quite deep with me. But I never let it hold me back. My resilience proved stronger and I have found my way.
Your art focuses on the body. What are you intending to express through your works?
I deal with the body, with being human. I try to take events apart in the most diverse ways, to dissect and perform autopsies on stories and people and to reassemble them so that people are challenged to see things differently. I fragment and deconstruct in order to ultimately create a composition and something new. It is a mischievous and unholy activity. I mix things up in every respect.
You are a visual artist, sculptor and painter, you create collages and do much more besides. How would you describe your creative process?
I am both white and black, so I use different coloured body parts. I use old stories to depict the present day in my magical yet realistic way. This has evolved quite organically over the years. The fact that I came to painting from the sculptural, object-like, material world, and that everything is now coming together, is reflective of my life. My collages are like holding up a mirror to myself. It’s all very natural. Like breathing in and breathing out.

How do you come up with your themes?
I often read something and have bits of it in my head, go to the studio and rummage through my collage archive of body parts. Sometimes I already have a picture in mind. Sometimes a particular word catches my eye. I then start researching it, both from an art history angle and in material terms. I would have loved to be an archaeologist too. For me, the question is always “Why?”. A childlike “Why?” that I just can’t escape! I can’t stop asking questions. I use signs and codes that are accessible to everyone, but which I combine to create new objects and images.
As an artist, how do you see Düsseldorf?
I grew up in Duisburg for the first four years of my life and then moved to Düsseldorf with my parents. Düsseldorf used to have more individuality, it was more direct, more open and more free than it is today. These rough edges have been institutionalised. Today, Düsseldorf is more like a boutique hotel. But I still love my home town.
What places in Düsseldorf have a special meaning for you?
If I want some peace and quiet, I go to the Volksgarten or the botanical gardens at lunchtime. I love the Rhine. I’m also rediscovering the Lierenfeld area, where my studio is. Many people go on their long-awaited holiday only to say: “It’s so authentic here with the locals sat outside their houses.” I prefer to do this on my own doorstep in Düsseldorf, a glass of wine in hand, or maybe sitting with friends outside the Fromagerie in Unterbilk among the herbs and flowerpots. Basic is what I like the best.

Apart from the Bilker Bunker, where else can you be found in Düsseldorf?
At concerts at Zakk or on Ratinger Straße, where I used to work as a waiter. Or at Brasserie Hülsmann in Oberkassel, where the food is great and former restaurant colleagues work. Or at Akro, where I sit outside shivering even in winter. I love the atmosphere combined with good food at Bar Olio or Em Brass. Lately I've been really enjoying going to the Forum on Lorettostrasse. It was opened by five young men, friends of my sons. When I'm completely exhausted, I fall down there and eat the most brilliant pizza: Comté with fennel or fried mackerel and a Prosecco from the barrel.
Have you got a favourite museum?
I’m a huge fan of the new exhibition at the Kunstpalast and the K21 is also a favourite spot. Some of my own pieces are on display in both museums. Art history really excites me and I can lose myself in it for hours. The memorial site on Mühlenstrasse is also worth a visit.
What does it mean to you as a Düsseldorf artist to have your work displayed in an institution like the Kunstpalast or K21?
I’m still struggling to come to terms with it! I can’t even put my success into words. I still see and feel the young girl who used to look after her little brother in Lantz’schen Park in Lohausen, playing among the sculptures and always dreaming of being an artist. The fact that it’s actually happening now is like waking up from a dream and realising it’s really come true!

What can we expect from your solo exhibition 'Dark Star Backyard' at the Bilker Bunker?
I had the opportunity to publish a book, called ‘Body of meaning’, that gives an overall impression of my work to date. This is how the exhibition came about. It’s about how the body is treated. I think it’s nice when I give back this reflection of the self and our environment in different ways so that others can share in it and get a new perspective – on people, on being, on individuals. As humans, we unfortunately tend to resist true individuality – and ultimately ourselves – at the moment. I myself am many. We all are, and there are formative life experiences that manifest themselves in us and that we then pass on. ‘Dark Star Backyard’ at the Bilker Bunker is my attempt to express this in abstraction, materialisation and composition.

Information
The exhibition ‘Dark Star Backyard’ runs until 8 January 2025 at the Bilker Bunker on Aachener Strasse. The supporting programme includes a Q&A and reading with the artist Anys Reimann, a media workshop for girls aged 13 and over, and guided tours.
For further information, visit bilkerbunker.de.
Text: Karolina Landowski
Photos: Uwe Kraft