Gelsenkirchen
Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen
The Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen's collection of paintings is, in the best sense of the world, representative, featuring a tour that traces the history of German art since the advent of Modernism. However, it's most unique feature is unquestionably how it presents kinetic works of art. The manner in which it combines these with related works from the fields of light art and op art make it stand out in particular, not just among the museums which make up the RuhrKunstMuseen, but across the art scene as a whole.
Kinetic Art – Moving Art
Not only when accompanied by children, when visiting the Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen, your first stop should be the slightly darkened basement. Here, visitors are invited to move and touch a number of the artworks on display. This museum is without peer when it comes to emphasising how mechanics and motorisation are making their way into the field of art.
Once visitors have set aside their fear of touching and their general shyness towards the exceptional art, they can easily spend an hour listening to the sequences of musical notes produced by Peter Vogel's 3-metre tall speaking column – sequences which vary depending on how the light falls – or allowing themselves to be transfixed by Peter Segler's prismatic, pastel-coloured play on light, "Spin und Dreieck" (spin and triangle). Endless visual worlds and interior landscapes are opened up to the viewer in what is colloquially known as the "mirror room" but which is actually called "Repro Modul", an installation created by Inge Haas.
From Zero to curious treasures
In addition to works created by the Düsseldorf-based group ZERO (Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker), the museum is also home to works from the B1 art group, members of which can be found across the entire Ruhr area. This includes the playful objects created by Rolf Glasmeier as part of his series "Kaufhausobjekte" (department store objects), the light art created by Günter Dohr, or Kuno Gonschior's psychedelic toadstool, "Rundkonvex Rot-Grün-Violett" (Round Convex Red-Green-Violet), which bewilders the senses.
An absolute favourite among the locals of Gelsenkirchen is Kees Aafjes' mildly obscene sculpture of a beetle – sadly not always on display – which bears the name "Spanische Fliege" (spanish fly). Here, visitors are invited to stroke the beetle and, when they comply, it expresses its pleasure. Time and time again, the manner in which the museum's collection is presented is characterised by the contrast between strict experimentations with form and playful machines of association.
Finding your favourite picture
The upper floor currently makes visitors feel as if they are taking part in a large art fair – everyone finds their favourite picture in the Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen's painting gallery. The exemplary acquisition policy of the 1950s has ensured that, today, a high concentration of different artworks are able to be displayed: from artists ranging from Max Liebermann to Auguste Rodin, from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Alexej von Jawlensky to Emil Nolde. Post-1945 German art is also represented here, for example in the form of Konrad Klapheck and Gerhard Richter. The collection, displayed along an elegant system of paths which leads along the stairs and balconies of the museum, displays big names in the art world alongside lesser well-known artists and features works that date up to the present. It is precisely this part of the collection which makes the museum a place of discovery for curious appreciators of art.
An additional focus of the collection is the artistic work of Anton Stankowski, a graphic designer who was born in Gelsenkirchen and who was responsible for designing logos for institutions such as the Deutsche Bank and the Börse Frankfurt. What's more, the museum owns over 3,000 paper-based works, which it presents in smaller exhibitions in its graphic prints department. The fact that the museum displays an ever-changing selection of contemporary artworks in the Alte Villa (Old Villa) is another aspect which perfectly rounds off a free – yet always worthwhile – visit to the Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen.
Gallery
Events
23. August 2026
15:00
Public Guided Tour
Radical Hope. Art and Worker Resistance
The international group exhibition Radical Hope examines how artists from modernity to the present day have approached the theme of worker resistance – documentarily, poetically, critically, radically, in solidarity and from personal experience.
In the early twentieth century, art brought working-class struggle against social injustice into focus. From the 1960s, labour struggles influenced artistic practice when artists themselves went on strike. And beyond the realm of art, resistance against working conditions has, to the present, generated impressive images and practices that move in step with global developments.
Gelsenkirchen is also home to a feminist chapter in the history of worker resistance. In the early 1980s, female workers fought for equal pay, thereby becoming part of a European movement which also included the campaign ‘Wages for Housework’ initiated by feminist artists in Italy. Both positions feature in the exhibition, which highlights various artistic perspectives and practices within the labour movement and at the same time looks at the manifold overlaps between different aesthetics of protest in art and everyday life.
Artists: Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Claire Fontaine, Jeremy Deller Milli Gandini, Nicolás Guagnini, Käthe Kollwitz, Lee Lozano, Anna Malagrida & Mathieu Pernot, Irène Mélix, Gustav Metzger, Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Jean-Luc Moulène, Mariuccia Secol, Selma Selman, Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis), Nicole Wermers
23. August 2026
15:00
Public Guided Tour
Radical Hope. Art and Worker Resistance
The international group exhibition Radical Hope examines how artists from modernity to the present day have approached the theme of worker resistance – documentarily, poetically, critically, radically, in solidarity and from personal experience.
In the early twentieth century, art brought working-class struggle against social injustice into focus. From the 1960s, labour struggles influenced artistic practice when artists themselves went on strike. And beyond the realm of art, resistance against working conditions has, to the present, generated impressive images and practices that move in step with global developments.
Gelsenkirchen is also home to a feminist chapter in the history of worker resistance. In the early 1980s, female workers fought for equal pay, thereby becoming part of a European movement which also included the campaign ‘Wages for Housework’ initiated by feminist artists in Italy. Both positions feature in the exhibition, which highlights various artistic perspectives and practices within the labour movement and at the same time looks at the manifold overlaps between different aesthetics of protest in art and everyday life.
Artists: Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Claire Fontaine, Jeremy Deller Milli Gandini, Nicolás Guagnini, Käthe Kollwitz, Lee Lozano, Anna Malagrida & Mathieu Pernot, Irène Mélix, Gustav Metzger, Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Jean-Luc Moulène, Mariuccia Secol, Selma Selman, Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis), Nicole Wermers
23. September 2026
18:00
Traces of Worker Resistance in the Multilingual Literature of the Ruhr Region
Radical Hope. Art and Worker Resistance
In context of the exhibition "Radicale Hope":
Historically, the Ruhr region has been marked by the migration of labour, however, literary accounts of these migration stories have often gone unnoticed. Nesrin Tanç’s lecture (RUB, College UA Ruhr) explores traces of worker resistance in the multilingual literature of the Ruhr region and invites us to discover them as part of the rich regional culture of remembrance.
23. August 2026
15:00
Public Guided Tour
Radical Hope. Art and Worker Resistance
The international group exhibition Radical Hope examines how artists from modernity to the present day have approached the theme of worker resistance – documentarily, poetically, critically, radically, in solidarity and from personal experience.
In the early twentieth century, art brought working-class struggle against social injustice into focus. From the 1960s, labour struggles influenced artistic practice when artists themselves went on strike. And beyond the realm of art, resistance against working conditions has, to the present, generated impressive images and practices that move in step with global developments.
Gelsenkirchen is also home to a feminist chapter in the history of worker resistance. In the early 1980s, female workers fought for equal pay, thereby becoming part of a European movement which also included the campaign ‘Wages for Housework’ initiated by feminist artists in Italy. Both positions feature in the exhibition, which highlights various artistic perspectives and practices within the labour movement and at the same time looks at the manifold overlaps between different aesthetics of protest in art and everyday life.
Artists: Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Claire Fontaine, Jeremy Deller Milli Gandini, Nicolás Guagnini, Käthe Kollwitz, Lee Lozano, Anna Malagrida & Mathieu Pernot, Irène Mélix, Gustav Metzger, Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Jean-Luc Moulène, Mariuccia Secol, Selma Selman, Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis), Nicole Wermers
04. October 2026
11:00
Film Matinée in cooperation with Schauburg Filmpalast
Radical Hope. Art and Worker Resistance
In context of the exhibition "Radical Hope":
The film, We Want Sex, (dir. Nigel Cole, 2010, 108 mins) uses British humour to tell the story of the seamstresses strike at the Ford plant in Dagenham. Led by Rita, they demand better working conditions and equal pay. Despite resistance from their bosses and their own families, the women show themselves to be courageous in their industrial action, a strike that would ultimately come to have historic significance in the campaign for gender equality.
1.15 pm: Reception in the foyer of Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen, followed by a brief introduction on the topic of women’s labour struggles in Dagenham and the Ruhr region, given by Anna Seidel (Fritz-Hüser Institute for Literature and Culture of the Working World, Dortmund).
2 pm: Tandem tour of the exhibition with Julia Höner & Friederike Sigler
04. October 2026
14:00
Tandem tour of the exhibition with Julia Höner & Friederike Sigler
Radical Hope. Art and Worker Resistance
In context of the exhibition "Radical Hope":
1.15 pm: Reception in the foyer of Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen, followed by a brief introduction on the topic of women’s labour struggles in Dagenham and the Ruhr region, given by Anna Seidel (Fritz-Hüser Institute for Literature and Culture of the Working World, Dortmund).
2 pm: Tandem tour of the exhibition with Julia Höner & Friederike Sigler
The international group exhibition Radical Hope examines how artists from modernity to the present day have approached the theme of worker resistance – documentarily, poetically, critically, radically, in solidarity and from personal experience.
In the early twentieth century, art brought working-class struggle against social injustice into focus. From the 1960s, labour struggles influenced artistic practice when artists themselves went on strike. And beyond the realm of art, resistance against working conditions has, to the present, generated impressive images and practices that move in step with global developments.
Gelsenkirchen is also home to a feminist chapter in the history of worker resistance. In the early 1980s, female workers fought for equal pay, thereby becoming part of a European movement which also included the campaign ‘Wages for Housework’ initiated by feminist artists in Italy. Both positions feature in the exhibition, which highlights various artistic perspectives and practices within the labour movement and at the same time looks at the manifold overlaps between different aesthetics of protest in art and everyday life.
Artists: Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Claire Fontaine, Jeremy Deller Milli Gandini, Nicolás Guagnini, Käthe Kollwitz, Lee Lozano, Anna Malagrida & Mathieu Pernot, Irène Mélix, Gustav Metzger, Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Jean-Luc Moulène, Mariuccia Secol, Selma Selman, Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis), Nicole Wermers