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Duisburg

Museum DKM

It doesn't take much to turn an unassuming building into a fantastic museum. All you need is to take something like a former electronics store, transform it with magnificent architecture, and add an extension to increase its size. This is precisely what happened with the Museum DKM in Duisburg, a museum which is well worth a visit.

The Museum DKM opened near Duisburg's main train station in January 2009, shortly before the Ruhr area was awarded the title European Capital of Culture as part of the RUHR.2010 campaign. This makes it the second-youngest museum in the RuhrKunstMuseen network (with the Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen opening its doors for the first time only a few months later). The name of this privately-owned museum can be traced back to the initials of its founders, art collectors Dirk Krämer and Klaus Maas.

 

Art meets Art

In the exhibitions in the Museum DKM, oriental, Far Eastern and Ancient Egyptian art which dates back almost 5,000 years meets newer art from the second half of the 20th century – paintings, photographs, sculptural works and room installations.

The works at the Museum DKM deliberately focus on a few exemplary, condensed topics, taken from art old and new across five millennia, as well as on exceptional artistic personalities whose work helped influence entire artistic styles. Notable artists such as Eduardo Chillida, Richard Serra, Richard Long, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Norbert Kricke are all featured within the collection.

Particularly worth seeing are Ai Weiwei's colourful vases, which act as a bridge between the Contemporary Avant-Garde and Far Eastern artistic tradition. The collection – which is also home to the Ernst-Hermann-Archiv (Ernst Hermann Archive) – is rounded off with selected burial objects from Ancient Egypt, ritual vessels from Amlash, Khmer art, scroll paintings from Japan, and the graphic works of Blinky Palermo.

 

An objective visual Experience

The themes connecting these works are also reflected in the architectural language of the purist 1960s building: minimalism, meditation and clear, timeless shapes. Swiss architect Hans Rohr was responsible for realising the founders' vision, i. e. that architecture should serve art.

In accordance with its motto "lines of quiet beauty", the museum spans five floors and cover an area of 2,700 m² across 51 rooms. So as not to interfere with any of the installations, none of the exhibits in the museum are labelled. The museum aims to provide visitors with an objective visual experience when entering the various artist rooms and themed rooms.

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