Die Tour dauerte fast zwei Stunden, woraufhin wir uns dankbar niederließen, um dieses visuelle Fest bei einem kalten Glas Champagner zu besprechen. Mehrere unserer Mitglieder hatten Kunstgeschichte studiert und waren von den Ausstellungen und den Geschichten einiger Künstler sehr beeindruckt. Doina stellte uns viele der Künstler vor, die sich die Zeit nahmen, ihre Werke zu beschreiben oder zu erklären. Ein Kunstwerk bestand zum Beispiel aus einem Video, das von einem Wald aus farbigen Streifen umgeben war, durch den man sich schlängeln konnte.

A Guided Tour by Doina Talmann

“Art Düsseldorf” is an art fair which has been held in in the Areal Böhler in Düsseldorf since 2017. Here, both established and new, regional and international galleries exhibit post-war and contemporary art.
 
The world of art is changing rapidly. Every few years there are new generations of artists, galleries, critics and curators who shake up the art scene and challenge the public’s view. Our visit to the “Art Düsseldorf” allowed us to meet and savour this challenge.

Doina Talmann, our Correspondence Secretary provided us with this opportunity through her expert guided tour of the galleries and artists exhibiting at the fair. Doina
was born in 1956 in Bucharest, Romania and has lived and worked in Bochum, Germany since 1980. After studying architecture, she completed her degree as a civil engineer in Dortmund and then established herself in a self-employed capacity in the fields of art and culture. In 2008 she founded the Project Gallery KunstArt and headed this until 2022. Her tasks entailed organising exhibitions in Germany and Romania, taking part in art fairs and festivals as well as publishing art books. She has published 26 art books in a tri-lingual (German-English-Romanian) format, demonstrating the visual art scene in Romania. Her books were introduced at the Frankfurt and Leipzig book fairs. So, it is fair to say, we had great luck to be guided by such a passionate member of the art scene.

We met at the entrance. Doina had arranged three tours to accommodate the numbers and she provided us with a detailed plan of the exhibition and explained each section to us, equipping us with hand-drawn directions of our tour on the map. We were entranced by the manifold exhibits and their originality. Also, by some of the artists themselves.

Our tour lasted almost two hours, whereupon we sank gratefully down to discuss this visual feast with a glass of cold Champagne. Several of our members had studied art history and were impressed by the exhibits and the stories of some of the artists themselves. Doina introduced us to many of the artists who took time to describe or explain their works. Another example was a video surrounded by a forest of coloured strips, which one could meander through. It was a highly rewarding visit and our sincere thanks go to Doina for organising it.