The former studio and home of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) in Düsseldorf will soon be open to the public. A foundation has bought the historic workplace of the world-famous fat and felt artist on Drakeplatz in Oberkassel.
From next Sunday, visitors will be able to view the house from the inside and see a presentation of around 60 works on Beuys’ work, the Brunhilde Moll Foundation announced. The exhibition will be complemented by photos with scenes from Beuys’ life and work at Drakeplatz 4.
“This is where Beuys’s brain was at home,” says curator Gerhard Finckh. The former director of the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal is part of a small team that has redesigned and carefully modernized the former Beuys House. “The past is still there, but we are making something new out of it,” says artistic director Elza Czarnowski.
A Beuys garden bench in the courtyard
Some surprising interior details that go back to Beuys remain. For example, the garden table in the inner courtyard, which Beuys built from four simple square stone slabs stacked into towers and then placed a white marble slab on top.
Beuys used the rooms as a home and studio from 1961 until his death in 1986. In 1975, the family moved to a nearby apartment. The house on Drakeplatz remained Beuys’ office, studio and “thinking space,” says Finckh. The Brunhilde Moll Foundation acquired the Beuys House after the city of Düsseldorf and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia showed no interest in it in 2021.
In the future, the house will accommodate scholarship holders and will host discussion evenings, art talks and performances. Research into the history of the building, which was built in 1908 by the sculptor Albert Pehle, has revealed that more than 20 artists lived and worked there temporarily from 1908 to 2023.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240919-930-236759/1
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