The legend of the art academy
250 years of the Art Academy, 250 years of art history in Düsseldorf. Hardly any other institution defines the city like the world-famous art academy with its wide corridors and spacious studios and workshops, which have produced artists such as Gerhard Richter, Andreas Gursky and Katharina Grosse.
Its appearance is venerable, its reputation world-famous, its parties legendary. With its magnificent Neo-Renaissance building, the art academy not only shapes the face of the city, but in its spacious studios international art history has been made. Düsseldorf owes its reputation as a metropolis of art - and its creative, free-spirited scene - to this educational institution situated on Eiskellerstraße. Young talents from many different countries have been drawn to the city by the Rhine to study painting, sculpture or photography at one of the country's most renowned art schools – and that since the 19th century. At that time, the art movement of the Düsseldorf School of Painting lead to it becoming an internationally recognised art academy, which in turn attracted many young artists from abroad. The study programme at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie is considered one of the freest. Its graduates include international artists such as Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Katharina Sieverding, Günther Uecker and Andreas Gursky. Studio classes in the areas of painting, painting and graphics, sculpture, photography, stage design, graphics or film and video are led by renowned artists. They have produced art-historically significant directions and internationally successful artists such as Tony Cragg, Katharina Grosse and Anselm Kiefer, some of whom have held professorships in Düsseldorf themselves.
Eines der schönsten und bedeutendsten Gebäude Düsseldorfs: Die Kunstakademie im Stil der Neorenaissance.
Learning to think art
In 2023, the Art Academy Düsseldorf celebrated its 250th anniversary with numerous exhibitions, celebrations and art events throughout the city. It was founded in 1773 by Elector Carl Theodor as a private drawing school, which became the Royal Academy of Art in 1819. Up until the 21st century, the art academy was run by influential artists such as Markus Lüpertz, and in 1921 women were admitted to study here for the first time. Today, a woman is once again at the helm of the academy - Principal Donatella Fioretti. For the Italian architect, who commutes between Venice, Berlin and Düsseldorf and has been teaching architecture at the academy since 2017, the Kunstakademie is a place to think art, make art, teach art and learn art. The free spirit and protected space of the art academy has become almost legendary. Students can develop freely, and experiment in their own studios and workshops. The highlight of the city's art calendar is the "Rundgang" at the end of the winter semester, where students exhibit their works and graduates display their final projects - a crowd-puller that regularly attracts over 50,000 art enthusiasts to Düsseldorf. Works by graduates of the art academy are not only displayed in museums around the world, they also fetch top prices on the art market. In March 2023, Gerhard Richter's work "Abstraktes Bild 596" was auctioned at Sotheby's in London for the equivalent of 27 million euro, underlining his position as one of the most expensive living artists in the world.
Die ”heiligen Hallen" der Kunstakademie: Durch ihre Flure wandelten Größen wie Beuys, Immendorff und Klee.
Global Influence
The academy's claim is: "Only the best for our students". This is chiselled into the entrance staircase of the main building located in Eiskellerstraße. As the first director of the academy, Peter Cornelius introduced a multi-level study programme. His successor Wilhelm Schadow added the "master class". The principle of entrusting the management of the academy to artists also dates from this time. After the First World War, classes for stage design and printmaking were introduced and the department for architecture was established. The Nazi "purge" led to the dismissal of many lecturers in 1933, including well-known lecturers such as Paul Klee and Ewald Mataré. Flags bearing the swastika were flying on the roofs of the academy until the end of the war. Then it was run by politically compliant lecturers and dominated by National Socialist notions of art and it even served as a warehouse for artillery and weapons during the war. After the Second World War, the academy regained its reputation for a being an important institution for contemporary art. In the 1960s and 1970s, with Joseph Beuys at as the centre of attention, it was an important point of action from which many impulses for young artists emanated. Düsseldorf artist circles centred around Heinz Mack, Gerhard Richter and Günther Uecker played with new ideas and movements such as German Pop, ZERO and Fluxus - and with that expanded the concept of art. Spectacular actions and discourses coming out of Düsseldorf not only influenced the art world, but also the student movement of the 1960s.
from BEUYS to BECHER
The Düsseldorf Kunstakademie with its impressive building and huge studios is still shrouded in legend. One being that it would not have allowed to enrol Joseph Beuys as a student in 1946 without a school-leaving certificate - had not been for the false testimonial supplied by a teacher friend. The studios of the time, such as Room 20, where artists Katharina Sieverding, Blinky Palermo, Imi Knoebel and Jörg Immendorff worked in the 1960s under Beuys' later, highly influential professorship, were also legendary. The photography class of Bernd Becher, who was the first photographer to be appointed to the professorship in 1976, was regarded as an evolutionary centre for the creation of important artistic trends. Students such as Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth attended the famous Becher class that he taught with his wife Hilla until the 1990s. With this she laid the foundation for the world-famous "Düsseldorf School of Photography". Whether painting, sculpture or photography - works by graduates of the art academy are significant, are owned by international museums and private collections, are traded at top prices and have shaped Düsseldorf's identity and reputation - as a world-class metropolis of art. •
WORDS KAROLINA LANDOWSKI
PICTURES KUNSTAKADEMIE