KREFELD.- In 2025, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld will present a series of exhibitions which further reinforce their distinctive identity as an institution that points up the intersections between art, architecture, and design and brings historical and contemporary positions into dialogue. The major exhibition of the year will focus on the brilliant French designer and architect Charlotte Perriand, a contemporary of Mies van der Rohe. This first retrospective of her work in the German-speaking world will offer a comprehensive presentation of the pioneer’s life’s work, highlighting her special contribution to modernism. In spring, to mark the seventieth anniversary of Haus Lange as a venue for contemporary art, an exhibition there will focus on the extraordinary history of site-specific art at the Lange and Esters villas. In conjunction with the show, Gregor Schneider has been invited by the Kunstmuseen Krefeld to continue this tradition and create a new spectacular work for Haus Esters.
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HLHE Dialogue: The Special Site
Partly Furnished, Excellent View
Site-Specific Art at Haus Lange Haus Esters
Haus Lange
03.30-9.21.2025
Since 1955, Haus Lange has been internationally renowned as a place where contemporary experimental art and modern architecture come together. On the occasion of this seventieth anniversary, as part of HLHE Dialog: Der besondere Ort (HLHE Dialogue: The Special Site), the Kunstmuseen Krefeld turn their focus for the first time on the tradition of site-specificity that has done so much to shape the exhibition history of Haus Lange and Haus Esters since the 1960s. There are a number of internationally famous artists whose first museum presentations emerged from their engagement with this site. To this day, artists continue to explore the identity of the houses, which were created in the late 1920s by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and in which the activities of dwelling and exhibiting have always been linked. The Haus Lange exhibition presents the history of site-specificity through sculptures, installations, films, paintings, as well as numerous documents from the Kunstmuseen Krefeld’s archive. In doing so, it offers visitors the opportunity to discover temporary projects that are nearly forgotten.
With works and projects by: Lara Almarcegui, Celine Berger, BLESS, Daniel Buren, Christo, Jasmina Cibic, Elmgreen & Dragset, Barry Flanagan, Hans Haacke, Haus-Rucker-Co, Bethan Huws, Anna K.E., Yves Klein, Karin Kneffel, Richard Long, Mario Merz, Claes Oldenburg, David Reed, Andreas Schmitten, Gregor Schneider, Richard Serra, Timm Ulrichs, Lawrence Weiner, Andrea Zittel, and others.
Curated by Sylvia Martin
Gregor Schneider
Haus Esters
05.04.-9.21.2025
Gregor Schneider (born 1969 in Rheydt, today Mönchengladbach) is developing a new site-specific work for Haus Esters - parallel to the exhibition Partly Furnished, Excellent View. Schneider is one of the internationally renowned artists. His best known work is Haus u r in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt. Since 1985, he has been meticulously building complete rooms within rooms in this house - an approximation of real space, as he himself describes his working method. Over the decades, Schneider has tried to build up an encyclopaedia of rooms with his stored collection of rooms. His Totes Haus u r was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Biennale. In 2023, Schneider was awarded the Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize for his significant contribution to recent sculpture history and his life’s work. In Krefeld, he is one of the few artists to have engaged with the location more than once. Gregor Schneider had his first museum exhibition at Haus Lange back in 1994, and in 2000 he explored the garden house at Haus Esters. To mark 70 years of Haus Lange, the artist is completing his exploration of the site on Wilhelmshofallee with a new site-specific work in Haus Esters. In this extraordinary project, Gregor Schneider explores the interface between art and life practice.
Curated by Sylvia Martin
Charlotte Perriand. L’art d’habiter / The Art of Living
11.02.2025-03.15.2026
Under the title L’Art d’habiter. The Art of Living, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld are mounting the first retrospective of the French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) in the German-speaking world. Her visionary design ideas continue to be relevant today. She is one of the most influential figures to emerge from Le Corbusier’s studio. The show will focus on Perriand’s innovative contributions to residential architecture and interior design and has been organized in close collaboration with the Archives Charlotte Perriand. As the major exhibition of 2025, it will take place at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum (KWM) as well as at Haus Lange and Haus Esters, the two villas designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The three exhibition venues, taken together, will present a lively picture of Perriand’s work. In the spaces created by Mies van der Rohe, the show will invite visitors to immerse themselves in a central chapter of French modernism. From her iconic tubular steel chaise longue to the Les Arcs ski resort, Perriand’s work encompasses buildings, interiors, and furniture, all of which underwent dramatic developments over the course of nearly seven decades. From questions of economic, ecological, and social life, through approaches that combine modern dwelling with traditional techniques, handicrafts, and local production, to sustainable production and the circular economy, many of her principles remain enormously relevant to contemporary issues and challenges and continue to inspire designers today.
This thematic retrospective will offer a unique insight into Perriand’s seventy years of creative work, enabling visitors to discover the innovative thinking and interdisciplinary design approach of this exceptional artist. At the heart of the exhibition are Perriand’s dialogues with the environment: her fascination with new techniques and materials, her study of nature and cultures as well as of rural life and traditions, her political stance, as well as her collaboration with other artists, designers, and architects. An education and outreach program on sustainable living will create platforms for further dialogue on coexistence today.
KWM
The exhibition at the KWM follows the development of Perriand’s design process from the early 1920s onward, with thematic sections such as “Industry Moves into Everyday Life” and “Learning from Rural Life,” with numerous original pieces of furniture, including international loans from prominent museums as well as archival documents and photographs. Large-scale, walk-in, usable reconstructions of spaces and architecture bring Perriand’s work to life.
Haus Lange
The presentation at Haus Lange, which originated as an art collector’s villa, thematizes Perriand’s guiding principle of a “synthesis of the arts” as well as her creative dialogue with other cultures and artists (including Fernand Léger, Isamu Noguchi, and Le Corbusier). In this Bauhaus villa, visitors are invited to rediscover Perriand’s concept of the total artwork as well as the relationship of modern design to nature and the local environment. With interiors inspired by her stays in Japan, Indochina, and Brazil, we are furnishing and decorating the Mies van der Rohe residence to create a unique ambience which makes it possible to directly experience how Perriand’s cultural influences shaped her approach to interior design.
Haus Esters
The exhibition at Haus Esters contextualizes the retrospective of Charlotte Perriand’s work, tying it closely to the history of the Kunstmuseen Krefeld and to present-day international design developments. Here, highlights from the museums’ design collection will be displayed, offering a different perspective on the relevance and topicality of Perriand’s ideas and design strategies—from the Werkbund through the Bauhaus to the present day with sustainable design projects. The Perriand show also provides an opportunity for the museum to undertake a targeted expansion of its design collection, in particular with new acquisitions in the field of sustainable design, which are presented here for the first time.
The exhibition is a collaboration of the Kunstmuseen Krefeld with the Museum der Moderne Salzburg and the Fundació Miró, Barcelona. Starting in Krefeld, it will be the first major exhibition of Charlotte Perriand’s work in all three countries.
Curated by Katia Baudin in collaboration with Waleria Dorogova and Juliane Duft
Collection in Motion—15 Rooms 15 Stories
KWM
Design, painting, non-European arts and crafts, and much more: in 2025, as in past years, visitors to Collection in Motion can look forward to discovering a series of rooms, each with its own small cabinet exhibition.
Wilhelm Wagenfeld
One of the year’s highlights is a presentation of everyday objects by designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1900-1990). Whether it be his famous table lamp, designed while he was still at the Bauhaus in Weimar, or the household products made of heat-resistant glass developed with the Jenaer Glaswerke: with his objects marked by functionality and timeless design, Wagenfeld is one of the most important product designers of the twentieth century. In connection with an acquisition that significantly enhances the Kunstmuseen Krefeld’s design collection, the museums are devoting a room to him at Collection in Motion on the occasion of his 125th birthday.
Helmut Dorner
Also included in this year’s offerings is the substantial gift of some fifty paintings, works on paper, and photographs by renowned artist Helmut Dorner (b. 1952, lives and works in Karlsruhe). The ensemble, which recently came to the Kunstmuseen Krefeld and ideally complements the museums’ existing holdings of the artist’s works, focuses primarily on his early work. This cabinet exhibition offers a compelling window into the development of this artist, who was one of the most important exponents of abstract painting in Germany in the 1980s.
Non-European Objects
Another presentation showcases the collection’s holdings of objects of non-European origin. These are primarily arts and crafts from Africa, Oceania, and Southeast and East Asia, which came to the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum between 1891 and 1930 and were intended to serve as inspiration for local artistic and industrial production. The provenance and cultural contexts of the objects were investigated in a wide-ranging project funded by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (German Lost Art Foundation). The presentation introduces the objects and tells the story of their origin.
With Collection in Motion, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld permanently devote the second floor of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum to fifteen themed exhibition rooms whose focus is constantly shifting. Whether it be Pop Art or major works of Rhenish Expressionism, Renaissance paintings or interiors by individual artists, commercial art and design or the artistic engagement with phenomena of everyday life—the museums’ multifaceted collection is presented here from a series of ever-changing perspectives.
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