Rheinland: Art and Patronage
Detail of Georgia Russell work in The Sea Around Us at Galerie Karsten Greve, September 2025
This year’s Düsseldorf–Cologne Open Galleries DC Open, held from 5–7 September, felt like a tidy reminder that the Rhineland art vibe is equal parts convivial gallery weekend and carefully staged market opening: fifty galleries across two cities, museums and off-spaces opened their doors to the public (and collectors of course). The event, now in its seventeenth edition, makes the late-summer weekend a useful primer on what the autumn season intends to be.
If the weekend’s energy can be summarised in a single observation, it’s this: the region still trades on the productive friction between museum gravitas and nimble, risk-taking galleries. On the institutional side, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf continue to anchor the scene - both institutions are not only exhibition engines but active players in the market (loans, spotlight shows and acquisition narratives) that define the city pair.
On the gallery circuit the hits were familiar and incisive. Galerie Droste in Düsseldorf opened Willehad Eilers’s text-laced paintings in Bored to Be Alive, a show that trades on ironic, painterly cool. In Düsseldorf as well, Kadel Willborn’s Hede Bühl presentation - sober, formal sculpture and a reminder of how mid-career sculptors still quietly hold market and curatorial attention - proved one of the weekend’s steadier draws. In Cologne, Galerie Karsten Greve’s presentation of Georgia Russell’s scalpel painting in The Sea Around Us was a highlight, not least because it reinforced the gallery’s reputation of showcasing younger talent alongside household names. Beck & Eggeling, meanwhile balanced canonical Gotthard Graubner with Dorothea Förster. Smaller galleries across both cities introduced innovative works by emerging painters and photographers, reflecting the region's commitment to fostering ultracontemporary emerging artists.
To understand why the Rhineland can sustain this density of museums and galleries, you only need to look at the region’s collecting history. Peter and Irene Ludwig remain a foundational example: industrial fortunes (Peter Ludwig chocolate empire) and a habit of public-minded donation transformed private holdings into civic treasures and, crucially, gave rise to the Museum Ludwig as a purpose-built home for modern art. This alliance between private wealth and public institutions underpins much of Cologne and Düsseldorf’s museum map. The same industrial fortunes that powered Germany’s postwar economy also created the art infrastructure: Art Cologne (founded in 1967) was the first art fair of its kind and remains the most important fair in Germany, built squarely on the Rhineland’s collecting class. Private collections like those of the Ludwigs, the Ströhers, or Julia Stoschek continue to shape the cultural landscape.
There is a second, more inconspicuous story woven into the weekend: the recycling of industrial space and the cultural afterlife of places that once felt economically derelict. The Ludwig Forum in Aachen (obviously not part of the event but a great example nonetheless), born from the Ludwigs’ collection and installed in a former umbrella factory, and Düsseldorf’s K21 housed in the converted Ständehaus demonstrate how museums and galleries may reinvent buildings and by extension, the public image of entire neighbourhoods. Repurposed spaces, many smaller than the examples mentioned, make DC Open a gallery crawl while mapping the region’s economic and architectural memory onto its contemporary art programme.
It is tempting to assume that Berlin, with its international artists and media buzz, is the epicentre of Germany’s art world. While Berlin excels in studio culture and experimentation, the Rhineland, with its collectors, echoes of industrial fortunes and institutional density, remains the structural centre of gravity for the German art trade. This concentration of wealth and tradition around patronage explains why a weekend like DC Open can draw attention: it is both a little bit of an art festival and a reminder of a region where industry and collecting have always gone hand in hand.
For anyone who cares about where German collecting began and where it’s heading, DC Open still offers an instructive, pleasurable snapshot.