Andy's Germany Adventure: Day 18 - Roaming the Ruhrgebiet

Thursday 27 January 2011
4007 km (2504 miles) travelled

This was my last day in Germany, and I made the best of it! In my original plan I had all but ignored the Ruhr district of North-Rhine-Westfalia. It is perhaps easy to dismiss the industrial centre of Germany, much like the English Midlands. But (like the English Midlands) it is worth another look, particularly as the area was joint European City of Culture 2010.

In the morning I visited the Folkwang Museum in Essen, at the centre of the Ruhr. I had already seen the special exhibition "Pictures of a Metropolis - the Impressionists in Paris" on day 2 (part 4), and it was just as well: it is a real blockbuster and they were queuing down the street (in the freezing cold) to get in. I bypassed that queue as I had come this time to get a good look at the permanent collection.

From the 19th century they have a respectable collection of Romantics (Friedrich, Carus etc) and some realists (Courbet etc), but the emphasis is on the 20th century. There is an excellent selection of German expressionists from both the Blue Rider (Kandinsky, Marc et al) and Brücke (Kirchner, Nolde and many more) movements, shown alongside some French Fauves and other avant-garde work such as Matisse, Cezanne and Gaugin, so the influences can be sensed. From the later 20th century there are German artists such as Baselitz and Beuys shown alongside international names such as Judd and Flavin. Altogether it gives a very good view of the development of 20th century avant garde art.

As a bonus, there was also a special exhibition related to town planning in the Ruhr district since 1800. I am not particularly into town planning, but it was interesting to see the approach taken historically to planning industrial and living areas, green space and pollution control - and culture. It gives a context to the role the Folkwang Museum aspires to play in the cultural and social redevelopment of the Ruhr for the 21st Century.

A similar role is expected of the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund, at Eastern end of the Ruhr. The Ostwall has recently moved to a renovated former Union Brewery building, now dubbed the "U" and just opened in December. This is now a really cool place. The building hits you straight away if you arrive in the evening as the top floor is decked out on three sides of the building with digital light screens used to project moving images that can be seen several blocks away. The Ostwall permanent collection majors in art that goes against the mainstream: Fluxus and Happenings, Multiples, New Realism, Abstract and Informal, Kinetic and Op Art, Concrete. They have a section called "Classic Modern" art, with a respectable showing of 20th century German Impressionists; when you walk into that room after seeing the rest of the collection it is like going back a century and the "classic" tag seems appropriate.

As an extra treat, there was a visiting exhibition "Picture for Picture" from the Pompidou in Paris, of art grouped around cinematic themes such as "the ray of light", "the projection area", "rhythmn", "editing", "frames" and others, into which were fitted a variety of slide and video shows, installations and minimalist work. I found it an original, imaginative, and entertaining format.

The Dortmunder U top floor is occupied by The View restaurant, decorated and lit like a dance club. They have good food too, so it was the ideal place to get my 'last supper' in Germany for this trip.