About us
Kunsthaus Dresden, photo: David Brandt
A municipal gallery for contemporary art, the Kunsthaus Dresden endeavors to offer a broad public insight into the art world through changing exhibitions of contemporary art. The exhibitions are conceptualized and carried out by a small team and address specific and typically current topics of contemporary art oriented towards an international spectrum. One of the main objectives of the Kunsthaus Dresden is to make artistic forms of expression and content more accessible to a broad public.
As part of its exhibition concept, the Kunsthaus Dresden develops individual projects as well as longer-term topic series. The series Geschichte / History and Notes from the Empire focus on memory processes as the subject of contemporary art and the relationship between art and history. The series wire/less reflects current transitions in our thinking caused by the possibilities afforded by digital media technology, while also illuminating the artistic reflection of our cultural and natural resources based on our immediate material environment.
The Kunsthaus Dresden’s changing offer boasts many concrete means of access for visitors to the diverse exhibitions. These exhibitions simultaneously provide impetus and establish connections and networking opportunities between Dresden’s young cultural scene and the interested public and supraregional discourses and selected players in international contemporary art.
Kunst = Bildung
The potential of contemporary art with respect to aesthetic and cultural education forms another emphasis in project development at Kunsthaus Dresden and has led to ongoing projects such as Walden #3, Vot ken you mach mobil and White Cube / Black Box — the latter a custom program of the Kunsthaus in cooperation with youths and in close collaboration with architects, designers and artists in Dresden. Find out more at www.white-cube-black-box.de
Aktuell
In addition to our regular discussion/guided tour offer for current exhibitions, (see Guided tours), we also organize cross-genre events relating to the foci of exhibitions. Please see our current program for information on discussions, films, lectures or performances and admission.
Kunsthausplatz
Since 2010, on the initiative of the Kunsthaus Dresden and on behalf of the City Planning Office of the City of Dresden, a new square has been realized according to a design by the artist Jozef Legrand, which presents the Kunsthaus in its center. Three long curved benches, are based on the shape of arabesques. As three-dimensional drawings, they frame the trees centrally located in the square and invite people to sit, climb and balance. Lines in the paving make abstract connections to the building’s surroundings and further reference the urban space. Words embedded in the pavement establish references between subjective spatial experience and the urban environment.
Two permanent artistic installations were created for the exterior façade of the house. The artist Sebastian Hempel, who was born in Dresden in 1971 and lives and works here, developed a new light installation for the rear façade of the Kunsthaus in close collaboration with the architects of Kessel & Züger. Equipped with sensors, the LED-based installation reacts to the movements of passers-by and visitors to the building, who are both potential users and actors.
Their movements become triggers that „set the artistic event in motion by means of their bodies. Only the physical presence of the user completes the work of art, which can only really happen in the moment of its contemplation.“ (Holger Birkholz)
The office Kessel & Züger, which was also responsible for the redesign of the entrance area, conceived together with Sebastian Hempel a new entrance situation in the rear area with spatial design as well as the canopy.
The work of the artist Karolina Freino entitled „SOS (Save our Souls)“ is an architecture-related sculptural work, in accordance with the commission it is positioned on the south facade of the building. The installation, which consists of nine sculptural mirrored elements, refers to the cultural mission of the house and indirectly, poetically addresses issues of changing values and cultural mission in a changing society.
The international Morse code SOS is an emergency signal that was established at the 2nd International Radio Conference in Berlin in 1906 and has been understood all over the world ever since. Three short, three long, three short, · · · − − − · · ·. In the curved surfaces of the Morse code translated into three dimensions, the neighborhood is reflected, but changes depending on the viewpoint of the observer. As a special immediate experience through the mirror effect of the curved surfaces, the viewer always remains ‚in the picture‘. The work sensitizes the viewer to the translation services of art, whose internationalization began at about the same time as that of radio traffic and describes an irreversible process of globalized modernity.