At the fair

German art between modern and contemporary at Art Dusseldorf

It was the largest edition ever with 119 exhibitors, including 32 new galleries

by Riccarda Mandrini

23 April 2026

«2025» di Regine Schumann, colormirror satin pastel pink hidden glow yellow and green, fluorescent and luminescent acrylic glass, 50 x 50 x 20 cm Courtesy Dep Art Gallery

4' min read

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Versione italiana

Key points

The proposed works by German artists

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The German city of Dusseldorf has a significant history in terms of modern art history. A generation of the most important conceptual artists of the second half of the 20th century, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Sigmar Polke, Katharina Fritsch, Rosemarie Trockel and the Achenbach brothers, trained at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie. A tradition of the German public art academies that never ceases to attract students from different countries and offer high-level training that becomes added value for young artists when looking for a gallery to represent them.

And Art Dusseldorf is intrinsically part of this story, a German fair as essence, where galleries in a large percentage chose to present their German artists, with a good balance between modern and contemporary. This year's fair opened from 17 to 19 April its largest ever edition with 119 exhibitors, 32 new galleries, of which 10 chose the Main section with a total of 65 exhibitors. "The galleries believed in our fair project, Dusseldorf is more and more a relevant city in terms of contemporary art," reports Walter Gehlen, fair director since the beginning.

«2025», di Regine Schumann, colormirror rainbow orange sunshine, fluorescent acrylic glass, 75 x 165 x 10 cm

The proposed works of German artists

On the large stand of RUTTKOWSKI; 68 (Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bochum, Paris, New York) there was a lot of attention for the works of Stefan Strumbel (1979), a self-taught artist who lives in the Black Forest and works with the natural elements of the land, both in the medium of sculpture and painting. The price range goes from EUR 10,000 for small works up to EUR 500,000 for large-scale installation sculptures.

The same goes for Philip Emde (1976), an artist who collects soft toys of all kinds with a particular interest in used ones, so that they carry with them a lived and human experience of the person who owned them. The puppets and their stories thus become the subject of his canvases, the price of which ranges from one thousand euros for small works to 50 thousand for larger ones. The interest in the works of Meuser almost goes without saying. Born in Essen in 1947, the artist had studied at the Kunstakademie in the 1970s where he was a pupil of Joseph Beuys. His works are often created with a view to revisiting the material waste left behind by industrialisation, particularly in the industrial area of northern Germany. Prices on request.

Nosbaum Reding based in Luxembourg and Brussels proposed the wooden sculptures of Stephan Balkenhol (1957), with a price range from 25,000 euros. Confirmed interest in the abstract paintings in coloured resin by the mid-career artist Peter Zimmerman (1956): prices ranged from EUR 10,000 for small canvases up to EUR 25,000. Peter Zimmerman's canvases are part of the Unicredit Art Collection. The gallery also emphasises the interest in canvases by the young German artist of Portuguese origin Melanie Loureiro (1994), who trained at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf.

“POLI and TICS”, 2024 di Philip Emde, acrylic on canvas, framed, unique (200.00 x 140.00 cm). (Photo: Courtesy of Ruttkowski;68)

Buchmann Gallery in Berlin reports 'the good market positioning, especially in Europe, for the work of German artists and increasingly for German women artists'. He mentions the work of sculptor Bettina Pousttchi (1979) who has been exhibiting internationally for years, from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, to the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, to the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, while 'Vertical Highway V03', made from reused guardrails is on display at the Rockefeller Center. Also on the stand are the photographic works of Anna Blume (1936-2020) and Bernhard Blume (1937-2011). The artists met at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf in the mid-1970s and together they launched a long career that saw them exhibit at the MoMa in New York, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Vienna gallery owner Thomas Krinzinger has no doubts; he too reconfirms his interest in German mid-career artists and young German artists in the European area.

On display are canvases by Jonathan Meese (1970) imbued with references to the fantastic and hyperrealistic world. Meese had exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and at Documenta the following year. Thomas Krinzinger also shows us paintings by Secundino Hernandez, an artist from Madrid, who studied and lived in Germany, described as one of the most promising painters of his generation. The prices of the works for both artists are on reserve.

German mid-career and contemporary artists on the stand of Galerie Lohr, Moenchengladbach, offered in a variety of media. Appreciated are the photographic works of Anett Stuth (1965), as well as the monochrome coloured resin sculptures of Dirk Salz (1962) and the nature-inspired metal sculptures of Paul Diestel (1996). Prices on request.

Artist: Meuser. Title: Große Rote. Year: 2025. Materials: Steel, paint. (Photo Credits: Kai Werner Schmidt)

The choice ofAntonio Addamiano, gallery owner of Dep Art (Milan), proved to be a winning one. For his first participation in Art Dusseldorf, he chose to propose a dialogue between the works in fluorescent acrylic glass by the German artist Regine Schumann (1961) and the Italian painter Salvo (1947-2015). Five works by Schumann sold for a price range of 8,000 to 10,000 euros and a canvas by Salvo for 48,000 euros.

Studio G 7 (Bologna) chose to return to the fair with a selection of works by Italian artists, including Paola di Pietri, Daniela Comani, Iacopo Mazzonelli, all sold out. Also sold out were works by Ulrich Erben (1940), an already well-known artist, present at Documenta in 1976 and professor for over twenty years at the Munster Art Academy. In his work, Erben explores the theme of colour and light and their mutual influence, both within the work of art and in its interaction with its surroundings. The price range is from EUR 15,000 to EUR 50,000 for large works.

The success of Art Dusseldorf is due to several factors, certainly a careful selection of the galleries and artists present, a well-curated collateral programme of events including visits to the city's various museums and foundations, but above all the credit goes to the fair's collectors 'educated' in an open dialogue with German art and beyond.