Ludger Gerdes

With the exhibition Ludger Gerdes the Kunstmuseen Krefeld pays tribute to an artist who left a telling mark on the German art scene in the 1980s. From 1981 onward Gerdes (1952-2008) developed a highly complex and wide-ranging body of work which, after some twenty years, is being shown once again in a one-man museum presentation - his first retrospective - and re-examined from the present perspective. With paintings, installations, written pieces and also photographs and interventions in public space, Ludger Gerdes created (thought) models that trigger public dialogues. This he did with an openness about mixing the individual media, about the connection between architecture and the visual arts, and about simultaneously citing from art history and utopian designs; an openness too in the communication between work and beholder, between art work and urban space, as well as between aesthetic practice and theoretical reflection. The publication will give a representative overview of the artist's output and present central aspects of his mental edifice and will document and discuss the Ludger Gerdes's oeuvre in all its salient features. The project will be mounted in cooperation with the Kunsthalle zu Kiel and the Archiv für Künstlernachlässe, Pulheim.