Urbane Künste Ruhr (Urban Arts Ruhr) is a German cultural institution founded in 2012, to create art in urban spaces in the city of

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populati ...

. The institution was established in the aftermath of Ruhr.2010, the

European Capital of Culture A European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union (EU) for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. Being a European Capital of Culture can ...

. It is led by curator

Katja Aßmann Katja Aßmann (born 28 May 1971) is a German curator and arts administrator. She is currently the artistic director of Urbane Künste Ruhr (Urban Arts Ruhr). About Aßmann, who studied architecture and art history in Bochum. In 1999, Aßmann d ...

since its founding. Urbane Künste Ruhr projects may include temporary architectural structures, urban space problem solving, and projects that include art research. Urbane Künste Ruhr is to develop cooperations with artists and scholars from various disciplines in order to create new cultural, political, and social strategies for metropolitan areas.

Projects

Urbane Künste Ruhr contributes periodically to the international music and arts festival

Ruhrtriennale The Ruhrtriennale ( compound of ''Ruhr'' and ''triennale'' "lasting 3 years"), also known as Ruhr Triennale, was founded in 2002 and is a music and arts festival in the Ruhr-area of Germany which runs between mid-August and mid-October, and happen ...

. Alongside these projects, Urbane Künste Ruhr generates programs within the three overall categories "Mobile Laboratories", "Regional Interventions", and "Strategies for the Region". The labs are considered to be a “research department” of the Ruhr metropolitan area. Curated by Urbane Künste Ruhr, the labs research the urban space of the Ruhr with artistic means on an equal footing with scientific means. Other projects connected with the second and third programmatic field aim at recent infrastructural ventures of the region, such as the renaturation project for the river

Emscher The Emscher () is a river, a tributary of the Rhine, that flows through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Its overall length is with a mean outflow near the mouth into the lower Rhine of . Description The Emscher ha ...

and the highway Ruhrschnellweg. The latter was already the scene for artistic productions and interventions during Ruhr.2010.

Network approach

Beyond programmatic and curatorial activities Urbane Künste Ruhr is assigned to administer the existing cultural networks in the metropolitan area. The vast creative potentials of the artists working in the region as well as the multitude of significant modern art museums (e.g.

Museum Folkwang Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...

Museum Küppersmühle Museum Küppersmühle (MKM) is a Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art based in Duisburg's Inner Harbour. It houses the Ströher Collection. It is part of the Duisburg: Town and Harbour section of the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail. History ...

Lehmbruck Museum The Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Center for International Sculpture is a museum in Duisburg, Germany. Sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, after whom the museum is named, make up a large part of its collection. However, the museum has a sub ...

etc.) joined forces in different networks (e.g. RuhrKunstMuseen, KunstVereineRuhr, "Starke Orte"). Urbane Künste Ruhr promotes these agglomerations by supporting them with infrastructure, marketing, and PR. The institution also encourages the development of new affiliations in the cultural sector.

Partners

Institutions

A lot of the projects of Urbane Künste Ruhr are co-productions with partner institutions, such as Regionalverband Ruhr, Emschergenossenschaft, Schauspielhaus Bochum,

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

, PACT Zollverein, Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Ringlokschuppen Mülheim, and many more.

Artists

Urbane Künste Ruhr works together with artists like

Daniel Buren Daniel Buren (born 25 March 1938, in Boulogne-Billancourt) is a French conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor. He has won numerous awards including the Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1986), the International Award for ...

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born 1967 in Mexico City) is a Mexican-Canadian electronic artist living and working in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He creates platforms for public participation by using robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized survei ...

, rAndom International, Haubitz + Zoche, and many other.

References

External links

Official website (english)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Urbane Kunste Ruhr Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia Ruhr Contemporary art organizations German artist groups and collectives