Gregor Schneider

Welcome

Sun, May 4, 2025–Sun, Sep 21, 2025

Haus Esters

Spaces and houses are both the central material and the essential metaphor in the work of the internationally renowned artist Gregor Schneider. For Haus Esters, he has developed a new work, Haus Alhman Aldaas, specifically for this place and its history. Schneider has invited a family to live in the Haus Esters museum for a certain period of time. The father fled Syria in 2015 and has been living in Germany for some time with his family, who followed him a little later. The family with two small children had furnished the first floor according to their own wishes and ideas. During this time, in April 2025, the museum was not open to the public. The house once again fulfilled its original purpose and served as a private living space. What happens to a museum like Haus Esters when it is inhabited by people with a different cultural background? What aesthetic influence have the new residents had on the rooms and the museum - and vice versa: how do rooms shape people's lives?

When the family moved out at the beginning of May, all the mobile furnishings disappeared. Only a few traces remained: wallpaper, curtains, signs of use. Where the family moved to and lives today remains an open question. With the Welcome project, Gregor Schneider questions three fundamental dimensions of the location: the house as early 20th century modernist architecture, as an interface between art and everyday life and as a museum exhibition space. The temporary conversion of Haus Esters also refers to a humanitarian and legal context: the topic of flight and migration in Europe.

Schneider documented the project in photos and on film without showing the residents directly. The resulting images provide intimate insights into everyday life and question the neutrality of museum spaces. The works can be seen at the KWM from May 23 to September 21, 2025.

Gregor Schneider (born 1969 Rheydt, now Mönchengladbach) is one of the most renowned contemporary artists whose work is represented internationally in exhibitions and collections. His best-known work is Haus ur in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt. He has been meticulously building rooms into existing spaces in this house since 1985. Over decades, Schneider has developed his own encyclopaedia of rooms with his stored collection of rooms. His Totes Haus ur was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Biennale. In 2023, the artist received the Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize for his contribution to recent sculpture history and for his life's work. Schneider has held a professorship for sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 2016.

The exhibition Gregor Schneider. Welcome is part of the HLHE Dialog series, which has been taking place in the neighboring Lange and Esters buildings since 2017. Contemporary positions from the fields of art, design and architecture as well as historical themes are placed in relation to each other. The theme of the current dialog is The Special Place. Schneider's new site-specific project forms the counterpart to the exhibition Partially furnished, excellent view in Haus Lange.

An edition has been published (poster print, edition of 300, 40 euros) and an artist's book will be published.

Curated by Dr. Sylvia Martin