The title "Sunbeam in the Glasshouse" takes up the character of the building, which is to be the guiding principle for the entire exhibition project. The former American Consulate General at Cecilienallee 5 in Düsseldorf-Golzheim was built in 1953 according to plans by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM). At the end of the 1990s, a perfectly matching extension was built on the former car park by Ingenhoven architects.

Sunbeam in the Glasshouse

19 June – 17 July 2011

Place: 
former Amerikanisches Generalkonsulat, Cecilienallee 5, Düsseldorf

with:
Nicolai Crestianinov, Frauke Dannert, Luka Fineisen, Susanne Giring, Erika Hock, Johannes Jensen, Heike Kabisch, Katharina Kiebacher, Michael Koch, Maren Maurer, Martin Pfeifle, Heiko Räpple, Jana Schröder, Stefanie von Schroeter, Niels Sievers

Curator:
Julia Ritterskamp

Kindly supported by: Aengevelt Immobilien, Berenberg Bank, ingenhoven architects, WGZ Bank

The title Sunbeam in the Glasshouse takes up the character of the building, which is to be the guiding principle for the entire exhibition project.

The former American Consulate General at Cecilienallee 5 in Düsseldorf-Golzheim was built in 1953 according to plans by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM). At the end of the 1990s, a perfectly matching extension was built on the former car park by Ingenhoven architects.

In terms of architectural history, the building can be assigned to the “International Style”: strict modular construction under functional aspects, mostly in steel skeleton construction with a lot of glass or other optically light materials. Along with the much better-known Dreischeibenhaus, the building is one of the architectural highlights with a global reputation from the period in question in Düsseldorf.

The exhibition will restore the significance of this magnificent building and bring it back to its rightful place in people’s consciousness. This results from the confrontation of up-and-coming young artists specifically with the building. Not intended and conceived as an exhibition hall, but today made available by Ingenhoven architects to the association 701 e.V. for a period of about 4 weeks, a temporary alliance with art is being created here. This is intended to be like the aforementioned light steel, which lastingly illuminates the viewer’s consciousness, even if it has long since become materially intangible. The works will explicitly deal with the fascinating architecture and at the same time explore the question of the relevance of the ideas of modernism / the principles of the International Style today in the face of the globalised world. The invited artists will conceive site-specific works for the interior as well as for the garden. Planned here are, among other things, installations that respond to the architecture or else compete with it – e.g. reverse glass paintings and video projections, artistic exhibition architecture such as houses built into the building, material references and floor works made of carpet.