Im Kinosaal
Group show featuring Hedda Roman
Sep 2nd – 7th, 2025
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf
DECHA
Sep 2nd – 7th, 2025
DECHA is the musical solo project of multidisciplinary artist Viktoria Wehrmeister, based in Düsseldorf. She began in the 1990s as part of Klaus Dinger’s band project la! NEU? and co-founded TORESCH in 2014 with Detlef Weinrich and Jan Wagner. Her hybrid compositions range from lo-fi to polyphonic sound arrangements, and she uses her voice playfully, shifting between bright and dark tones, thus transcending clear gender identities.
In the exhibition, Viktoria Wehrmeister presents a collaborative music video by Hedda Roman and DECHA, a video documentation of a DECHA performance, as well as two music videos and a video documentation on TORESCH by Jan Wagner.
Im Kinosaal
Jun 7th – Sep 7th, 2025
With: Antonia Alessia Virginia Beeskow, Gregor Darman, Dominik Geis, Alexandra Gruebler, Lukas Heerich, KOIR, Lilli Lake, Aylin Leclaire, Stefan Schneider, Gerhard Stäbler & Kunsu Shim, Nikolai Szymanski, Julian Westermann and DECHA
The year 2025 marks a very special moment for Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, as it is a year of farewell. A farewell to the striking concrete cube on Grabbeplatz, which is set to undergo extensive renovations starting in April 2026 and will close its doors for about three years. But it is also a (temporary) farewell to our many neighbours – Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, the bookstore Walther König, Kom(m)ödchen and Salon des Amateurs – the spatial and cultural proximity that has shaped this building for decades.
With the exhibition IM KINOSAAL, we now turn our attention to the audiovisual history of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf’s neighbour- hood. Düsseldorf is internationally renowned for its influential music and sound culture, which has long been closely intertwined with the visual arts. In the 1970s, bands such as Kraftwerk, Neu! and La Düsseldorf played a key role in the emergence of electronic music and went on to influence generations of musicians around the world. Punk, Krautrock and Neue Deutsche Welle with bands like DAF, Die Toten Hosen and Fehlfarben had their roots in the underground scene centred around the artist’s bar Ratinger Hof on Ratinger Strasse. Ratinger Hof was also a meeting place for artists studying or teaching at nearby Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In the decades that followed, the city remained a vital hub for experimental sound art, punk, new wave and techno.
While the sound history of the 1970s and ’80s in Düsseldorf has already been widely explored through exhibitions, publications and symposia, we now turn our focus to developments since 2000 and the current artistic landscape: from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, whose faculty and students have long pursued interdisciplinary and collaborative work with sound and music, to Salon des Amateurs, founded in 2004 by former academy students Aron Mehzion, Detlef Weinrich and Stefano Brivio in the Kunsthalle building. As an artist-run bar and cultural meeting place, the Salon has gained recognition far beyond Düsseldorf and remains a key venue for artistic exchange and musical experimentation.
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf itself has long served as a stage for performances, concerts and the fusion of sound and visual art, a place for experimentation and interdisciplinary exchange. The exhibition IM KINOSAAL thus follows in the tradition of numerous projects and formats such as düsseldorf sounds (2007), Kunsthalle BÜHNE (2011–2014), time_based_academy (2015–2016), and Conrad Schnitzler – “Sometimes it gets out of hand and turns into music” (2022), all of which are exemplary of this history.
The exhibition IM KINOSAAL’s namesake and central venue is one of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf’s most striking architectural features: the Kinosaal (cinema hall). With ceilings nearly 12 meters high and a 17-meter-wide front wall, the space exudes a monumental and overwhelming, yet sublime atmosphere – a room that challenges perception and forms the spatial starting point of the exhibition. Over the course of 13 weeks, it will be transformed into a monumental, ever-evolving cinema through a wall-sized video projection and an immersive sound installation. 13 artists will each use the space for one week as a stage for audiovisual experiments, experiences and interventions. They explore the interplay between art and sound in diverse forms: from installation-based sound art, (music) videos and digital compositions to performative formats and public rehearsals.
The participating artists are central figures in Düsseldorf’s vibrant and ever-evolving contemporary art and music scene. Characterised by collective working methods, the blurring of genre boundaries and intergenerational dialogue, the exhibition captures a snapshot in the current artistic and musical landscape.
The exhibition also pays special tribute to Salon des Amateurs, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024, marking two decades of inspiring neighbourly ties with Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Known for its excellently curated music programme, the Salon has, over the years, brought out numerous renowned musicians, DJs and producers. Artists such as Lena Willikens, Jan Schulte (Bufiman), Stabil Elite and Detlef Weinrich (Tolouse Low Trax), as well as labels like Themes For Great Cities, TAL, Candomblé and Offen Music, all have their roots here. The city’s electronic music scene has been profoundly shaped by Salon des Amateurs, which remains a vibrant gathering place for artists and students from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and is widely recognised well beyond the city.
In close collaboration with the team and many key figures who have shaped the Salon over the years, a retrospective has been created specifically for the exhibition, located on the gallery of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. It serves as an archive, a space of remembrance and a tribute to a place where creative exchange, community and nightlife have always gone hand in hand. Posters, flyers, photographs and videos form a subjective archive that captures the cultural significance of the Salon for Kunsthalle’s wider environment in a rich, polyphonic manner.
The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive program of educational and supporting events, including concerts, performances, and talks.
