VAW – Vitrine am Wasserturm

A newly established exhibition space at Areal Böhler. Since April 2025, it has hosted quarterly temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. The first three exhibitions were curated by Benny Höhne, founder of the art portal ArtJunk, and featured works by Dardan Zhegrova, Saskia Tamara Kaiser and Marie Schubert.

Areal Böhler is developing into a place for innovation, sustainability and social exchange. The focus is on the careful revitalisation of the listed halls and the creation of new green spaces as a contribution to greater vitality and environmental responsibility.

Art and culture are key pillars of the development. In close collaboration with technology, research, the creative industries and gastronomy, an open cultural space is emerging with regional roots and an international outlook. The focus is on contemporary works that engage with the pressing issues of our time. Accessible, participatory and interdisciplinary. We specifically support young artists from the region, create spaces for new perspectives and invite people from a wide variety of backgrounds to get involved. Art is experienced in the form of exhibitions, interventions and events beyond traditional institutions.

Preview

Christoph Blawert – curated by Julika Bosch

April 16, 2026 – June 30, 2026

Opening: Thursday, April 16, 2026, 7 pm

To mark Art Düsseldorf, a new exhibition featuring the artist Christoph Blawert (*1981, Offenburg) is opening at VAW – Vitrine am Wasserturm exhibition space at Areal Böhler. The exhibition is curated by Julika Bosch.

The presentation is the result of an open call issued by Art Düsseldorf to invited galleries. From the submitted applications, Produzentengalerie Hamburg emerged as the winner. In close collaboration with curator Julika Bosch, Blawert will develop a site-specific work for the Vitrine that engages with the unique character of the exhibition venue.

Christoph Blawert is known for his large-scale installations, which deliberately enter into dialogue with their architectural and institutional context. His highly acclaimed works include the radical redesign of the entrance hall of the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen with “Tick Tacks Fancy Museumshop”, as well as the installation “In Heaven Everything is Fine” at Tick Tack Antwerp – a comprehensive installation inspired by a Hunkemöller lingerie box. The exhibition also reflects a growing connection between Art Düsseldorf and Areal Böhler – two venues that together provide space and resonance for contemporary art in Düsseldorf.

Julika Bosch is an independent curator based in Düsseldorf. Until March 2026, she was director of the Philara Collection; prior to that, she worked at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover. The exhibitions she has curated include the group shows *Melting Sands* and *Cutting the Puppeteer’s Strings*, as well as solo exhibitions featuring Phillip Sollmann & Konrad Sprenger, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Camille Henrot, Hassan Khan and others. For 2026/2027, she is planning, together with Vincent Stange, a ‘Swimming Opera’ at the swimming pool of the same name in Wuppertal – a musical project featuring sound and text both above and below the water.

Past exhibitions

Marie Schubert – invited by ArtJunk

October 16, 2025 – February 28, 2026

On air: 'Little man with a very large hat’, 2025

Size: 450 x 160 x 135 cm (size variable)

Steel, radio antennas, glass stones, herringbone oak parquet flooring, skirting boards, light.

The new solo exhibition by Düsseldorf artist Marie Schubert (born 1995) opened at VAW – Vitrine am Wasserturm on Areal Böhler.

For her sculptural and graphic work, Marie Schubert combines found materials with elements she has created herself, including, in particular, filigree metal sculptures. The interplay of repurposing and recontextualisation gives rise to ambiguous works imbued with subtle humour that question traditional habits, gender roles and power structures. In the display case at the water tower, the artist presents a large-scale installation designed specifically for the location, which references the industrial heritage of the Böhler steelworks, built in 1915 and now converted into an event space. Between transience and decay, the historical backdrop allows visitors to experience how orders once believed to be unbreakable are beginning to falter.

Marie Schubert lives and works in Düsseldorf. Since 2020, she has been studying sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, initially under Prof. Franka Hörnschemeyer and, since 2024, in the class of Prof. Alexandra Bircken. Her works have been exhibited on several occasions, most recently at the MiettinenCollection, Berlin, the Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, the Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, and together with the Working Textiles collective at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Temporary Gallery, Cologne, and Live Lab Studios, Düsseldorf.

To mark the opening, there has been a concert at 8 p.m. by the band Blue Sugar Boundaries, founded by Marie Schubert, Viktoria Feierabend, Sonja Heim and Linda Skellington, followed by drinks and a warehouse party with DJ sets by Carolina Reaper, 500insights and GG Dee.

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Saskia Tamara Kaiser – invited by ArtJunk

July 10 – September 27, 2025

The new solo exhibition SHAME by Saskia Tamara Kaiser (*1994) inaugurates the second show at VAW – Vitrine am Wasserturm with a live performance by the artist.

In her performative and sculptural works, Saskia Tamara Kaiser explores the interconnections of human pain, shaped by her own biographical experiences. At VAW, she presents her new piece SHAME for the first time as part of a site-specific installation developed especially for the venue, accompanied by other performers. The performance addresses shame as a structural and gender-specific condition in a society increasingly dominated by pressures of visibility and representation.

In dialogue with the audience, grotesquely grinning smartphone mouths, blood-soaked bodies, and fragmented reflections merge into a media-critical allegory of the mechanisms of digital self-staging and self-conditioning.

Saskia Tamara Kaiser lives and works in Bonn and Düsseldorf. Since 2019, the originally trained glass painter is now studying sculpture in the class of Prof. Gregor Schneider at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Her works have been widely exhibited and performed, most recently at Kunstmuseum Solingen, Künstlerverein Malkasten Düsseldorf, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Live Lab Studios Düsseldorf, and the Diözesanmuseum Rottenburg.

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Dardan Zhegrova – invited by ArtJunk April 11 – June 30, 2025

The first of four solo shows in 2025 kicked off on Thursday, April 10, featuring Kosovar artist, journalist, and activist Dardan Zhegrova (b. 1991, Pristina).

Dardan Zhegrova's work spans sculpture, painting, performance, video, and sound art. At Vitrine am Wasserturm, he presents a new site-specific piece from his series of larger than life-sized, hand-sewn puppet figures, the so-called Hybrids, adorned with colorful drawings. Displayed in various poses, these amorphous sculptures explore concepts such as self-perception, otherness, role shifts, and identity formation. They are rooted in Zhegrova’s childhood experiences between his mother's seamstress job and the renowned Dodona puppet theater in Prishtina. During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, Dodona became a sanctuary of cultural resistance and preservation for the Albanian community. Against this backdrop, Zhegrova’s Hybrids evoke spheres of emotions, historical perspectives, and, ultimately, an open dialogue with the viewer.

Dardan Zhegrova lives and works in Prishtina, Kosovo. His work has been shown internationally, most recently at MUDAM, Luxembourg (2024), The National Gallery of Kosovo, Prishtina, Autostrada Biennale, Prizren (2023), Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York (2022), and Fragile, Berlin (2020). In 2016, he was awarded the Artist of Tomorrow Award, leading to a residency at Residency Unlimited in New York City. In 2014, he was an artist in residenceat Villa Romana, Florence.

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