Curator
Early on, Peter Stohrer had the experience of working in communities and pursuing common goals with them, but not without clear ideas of his own about how they could be equipped. He was very well informed about what was currently being negotiated in the art scene and had a good sense for artistically and socially relevant positions. Thus, as a rule, he also exhibited those artists for whom it was not enough to hang their picture on the wall or to present their object, but those who thought about and looked at the world beyond their individual artistic framework. His political agenda, as both artist and curator, was the space that needed to be defined.
With many of the exhibited artists, he also realized catalogs as a graphic designer that documented the respective exhibition.
Thus, an intensive engagement with the artistic position, from the first encounter to the working process of exhibition construction and later reflection, was a holistic task for Stohrer. This “all-round care” of an artist colleague was rare in the art business – often, therefore, working relationships resulted in friendships.
He himself did not act as an art mediator in the academic sense: At openings, he limited himself to greeting those present; the introductory speeches were given by dedicated art historians.
As a curator in Essen, Stohrer left his mark on three art venues for several years: the Forum Bildender Künstler (1993-1997), which was still located in the Old Synagogue at the time, the BeSt Kunstraum Kettwig (2004-2013), which he ran together with the artist Anne Berlit, and the Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck (2012-2017) in the west of the city.
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck, 2016
Susanne Stähli
Lichtes Werk-Light Work
The artist Susanne Stähli deals with the appearance of color. In addition to painting, in recent years the architectural space with its specific lighting conditions has become the focus of her examination. In the chapel of Borbeck Castle, she addresses not only the concrete conditions of architecture, but also the metaphysical radiance of sacred space. Susanne Stähli studied painting at the University of Applied Sciences for Art and Art Therapy, Ottersberg. In 1989 she received the sponsorship award of the city of Witten. In 2011, she was a prize winner “Kunst am Bau”, police headquarters Bochum, 2021, prize winner “Kunst am Bau”, JVA, Willich. Susanne Stähli has a teaching position for art at the University of Witten/Herdecke.
27.02.2016 – 2017
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Notes on the exhibitions 2016
This year the reconstruction of the farm building, where the gallery is located, was to begin. Peter Stohrer planned several exhibition projects outside the gallery. The permanent light installation by Susanne Stähli in the chapel of the castle as well as two unique events were realized,
the extremely impressive and elaborate laser installation by Rainer Plum in the castle park and a video-music performance by the sound artist Florian Walter and the video artist khm in the chamber music hall of the castle. Since Peter Stohrer fell ill in the fall of 2016, further projects could not be realized.
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck, 2015
Nikola Ukić
Blow Up
The Düsseldorf artist Nikola Ukić works as a sculptor with unusual materials: polyurethane and foils printed with photographs. His artistic approach lies in this merging of sculpture, photography and performance. Nikola Ukić studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Georg Herold and at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb. He has received various awards and scholarships, most recently the special prize of the XI Triennial of Croatian Sculpture.
17.01.2015 – 15.03.2015
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Klaus Schmitt
17 to 7
For Klaus Schmitt, the interaction between body and space is the starting point of his work. The artist is interested in the exploration of space within its given boundaries. The sculptor defines spaces, builds on them and obstructs them. His constructions are comprehensible, nothing remains hidden. Klaus Schmitt studieat the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf with Günther Ücker, whose master student he became. Travel and work scholarships took him to New York and Italy. Most recently, his works were on view at the Museum Liner in Appenzell, Switzerland, at the Stadtgalerie Lehen Salzburg and Artphy Onstwedde, Groningen.
28.03.2015-24.05.2015
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Paul Schwer
Licht am Waldboden – Light on forest ground
Paul Schwer makes his interventions with everyday materials. Light as lines, his constructions of neon tubes, cables, and roof battens float through space, measuring it and leading visitors through the chaos of plugs, cables, painted glass, and foils. Paul Schwer studied art at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and medicine in Strasbourg. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, he developed the interdisciplinary art project UNART at the University Hospital in Essen. A master student of Erwin Heerich, Schwer has received numerous awards and his work has been shown in international exhibitions.
06.06.2015
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Notes on the exhibitions 2015
As curator of the Städtische Galerie Schloß Borbeck, Peter Stohrer, in consultation with the then director Dr. Bernd Mengde, was not only responsible for the selection of artists, the organization of the exhibition and its realization, but also repeatedly for the acquisition of third-party funding. This also made the material-intensive production of Nikola Ukić’s project “Blow Up” possible – the sculptures were created on the grounds of the Zeche Carl. The sensitive paper and roof batten installation by artist Klaus Schmitt caused irritation:
The supervisory staff felt trapped and the administration was concerned about escape routes. All this could be dispelled, but it also showed the limits of experimentation. With the coming renovation in mind, Stohrer brought installation artist Paul Schwer into the gallery with an enticing offer: Schwer would be allowed to artistically announce what would soon happen in the rooms. Finally, the Cologne video artist Annebarbe Kau provided a poetic and cross-disciplinary conclusion with her “video songs.”
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck, 2014
Volker Saul
Space painting and pictorial signs
The exhibition at the Städtische Galerie refers to heraldry, which Volker Saul, inspired by the history of the castle, has chosen as a source of colours and forms. However, the artist avoids direct recognition; instead, he challenges the viewer’s potential for association. He works with modular pictorial signs, which he cuts out of aluminium sheets with laser cutting machines and mounts on sign-like, painted wall surfaces. Volker Saul studied free graphics and painting at the Fachhochschule für Kunst Köln, he received several scholarships and the Euregio Kunstpreis Kleve as well as the “Günther Peill Scholarship of the Leopold Hoesch Museum Düren”.
25.01.2014 – 09.03.2014
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Rebecca Michaelis
Anderswo-Elsewhere
The Berlin artist Rebecca Michaelis studied art at the Berlin University of the Arts and at Hunter College New York. She is a master student of Frank Badur. She has received numerous scholarships, including the DAAD Scholarship New York City. Michaelis is currently working as a substitute professor at the HfBK Dresden. Rebecca Michaelis uses simple basic forms in her painting that can be found in all cultures: Circles, triangles, ellipses, diamonds. Following the principle of all-overs, Rebecca Michaelis layers and arranges ornaments, patterns and grids on top of and next to each other. The strict structures are broken up by overpainting and overlaying.
07.06.2014 – 24.08.2014
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Nikola Dicke
Hermelin und Rosenkranz – Ermelin and Rosary
Nikola Dicke is first and foremost a draughtswoman, but one who operates her drawings as temporary interventions in public space. The façade of Borbeck Castle serves the artist as a projection surface for history and memory. They entwine around the glorious rule of the powerful women, the prince abbesses of the Essen Abbey, whose residence the castle was for centuries. Nikola Dicke takes a closer look at the architecture and atmosphere of the building and tries to capture the spirit of the place, beyond the depictive.
24.10.2014 – 31.10.2014
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Notes on the exhibitions 2014
This exhibition year was dominated by spatial painting and spatial drawing. Inspired by his visits to exhibitions and studios, Stohrer usually also matured the idea and concept for an exhibition year. Volker Saul’s studio visit and his idiosyncratic wall painting provided the initial impetus for the focus of the exhibition year. Raymund Kaiser’s works were already known to Stohrer and the Berlin artist
He discovered Rebecca Michaelis while browsing through catalogues, which was his passion. Dr. Bernd Mengede and Birthe Marfording also wanted to talk about the eventful history of the castle and its foundresses, the Prince Abbesses. The artist and light draughtswoman Nikola Dicke was the obvious choice, as her projection drew attention to the history of the site for a whole week.
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck, 2013
Martin Pfeifle
Sava
Martin Pfeifle studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and was a master student of Hubert Kiecol. He is represented in exhibitions internationally and is now Professor for Body, Space, Structure at the Hochschule Düsseldorf, Paul Behrens School of Arts, Department of Architecture and Design. Whether indoors or outdoors, Martin Pfeifle usually uses simple, common materials: foils, chipboard, polystyrene, neon tubes, polyester and high-contrast colours. In the gallery, he constructs diagonal webs of polyester fabric along the ceiling, thus not only rhythmising the usual walk through the rooms, but also creating a new sense of space for the visitors.
26.01.2013 – 21.04.2013
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Heike Weber
Cosmos
What is special about Heike Weber’s artistic work are her expansive drawings. They develop in correspondence with the space. The artist is concerned with states of suspension as well as the dissolution of firmly established structures. For the draughtswoman, the “swaying floor” has the function of making people aware of their presence, their existence.
Heike Weber studied art and design in Aachen and Glasgow, received several international scholarships and is the 2021 winner of the cityArtist Cologne of the Kultursekretariat NRW. She has won and realised numerous art on building competitions, most recently together with Walter Eul for the Helmholtz Centre in Munich.
13.07.2013 – 29.04.2013
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Anne Berlit
Codes
“Codes” is the name of the group of works that Anne Berlit is exhibiting in its entirety for the first time. The elongated pictorial bodies are reminiscent of the very codes we know from the goods in the supermarkets. The works consist of individual elements that are mounted next to each other on the wall. Anne Berlit studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and was a master student of David Rabinovitch. Her works are represented in public collections. She has realised several “Kunst am Bau” projects, including participatory ones, such as the recent “Am Ende Licht” (At the End – Light) as part of Folkwang und die Stadt, 100 Jahre Museum Folkwang. She is the winner of the Cityartist NRW, Essen, 2020.
12.10.2013 – 24.11.2013
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Notes on the exhibitions 2013
The 2013 exhibition year brought spatial installations to the fore that permanently change the feeling of space. This was particularly evident in the installation interventions by Martin Pfeifle in “Sava” and Heike Weber in “Cosmos”, but also in Anne Berlit’s “Codes”, whose precisely coloured interstices created a rhythm in seeing. What all these works have in common is that the visitors “have” to move,
if they want to make space physically tangible for themselves. The fourth exhibition of the year was titled “Pieces of Sky” and presented the photographic, sound-installative works of Elke Seeger, professor of photography at the Folkwang University. The artist used photographic superimpositions and sound to allude to the fleeting nature of the temporal phenomenon “sky”.
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck, 2012
Hans-Peter Webel
Pupur Zier-Purpur Adorn
The sculptor Hans-Peter Webel studied at the Hamburg Art Academy under Franz Eberhard Walter and became known in 1995 through a large solo exhibition at the Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach. In the 1990s he created plaster sculptures that play with associations to architectural decoration and stucco profiles. He was particularly challenged by the contrast between today’s drab façades and historicised ornamentation. He creates numerous sculptural interventions in the exterior space, which he ironically calls “fitting” and documents photographically. In his new works, the sculptor takes his interest in jewellery and ornamentation to the extreme by “trying on” plaster sculptures and, above all, ephemeral materials such as flowers and vegetables to create whimsical shapes. The artist himself becomes a sculpture – but one that is doomed to transience. Questions about the value of things and death arise.
12.10.2013 – 24.11.2013
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Joanna Schulte
Bis dass der Tod uns scheidet – Until death do us part
Joanna Schulte studied fine arts at the FH Hannover and was a master student of Prof. Ulrich Eller. In the exhibition, she shows photographs of marital bedrooms in which a partner has died. Other installations also deal with death, for example in a video and in a sound installation with the death of the mother. Her artistic means range from photography to video installations. The multi-part project “Dying for Love”, in which the participatory series of letters “Letters to Oliver” occupy a special place, runs like a thread through the artist’s creative years. Joanna Schulte has received several scholarships and prizes and, in addition to her artistic work, is now a lecturer for Arts in Social Ottersberg, Department of Visual Arts.
2012
Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck
Notes on the exhibitions 2012
In 2012, Peter Stohrer initially took over a few more exhibitions from the previous director of the Städtische Galerie Schloss Borbeck, Inge Ludescher, so that the programme was not entirely conceived by him and shows a variety of different positions, especially in the field of photography and video. He invited Hans-Peter Webel because he could still remember very well his “fitting” of plaster ornaments and found this ironic approach very suitable for the historical exhibition venue. Johanna Schwarz had already been a guest at the BeSt Kunstraum- Peter Stohrer knew
around her idiosyncratic, philosophical-poetic approach to visual sign settings, from drawings and typefaces to objects. Joanna Schulte’s photographic works were already set and he particularly supported the artist’s installative approach. It is a coincidence that much of this exhibition year 2012 revolves around death, transience and the longing for a fulfilled life, but sometimes there are probably connections that just happen. That is perhaps also the magic that a place can radiate.
BeSt Kunstraum – Space for contemporary art
Anne Berlit and Peter Stohrer opened the BeSt (abbreviation for Berlit/Stohrer) Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst in Essen-Kettwig in December 2004. For their first exhibition, they invited renowned artists to make a work available for purchase for 49.99 €. However, under one condition: Without naming names. The aim of this ironic invitation was to put the art and not the name in the foreground.
The exhibition was a great success and led to 20 exhibitions of space-related art until 2013. Over the years, young
and established artists from NRW, but also from other parts of the country as well as Great Britain and Switzerland.
With the exception of a grant from Switzerland, the BeSt Kunstraum was not funded, despite several applications to the city of Essen, because there was no association behind it and it was understood to be a commercial gallery space. Stohrer/Berlit ran the exhibitions at their own expense, and the artists also contributed to their realisation. Peter Stohrer kept the regular opening hours for several years until he took over the Städtische Galerie Schloß Borbeck.
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2013
Claudia Sacher
Heimatschuss-Homeland shot
“Heimatschuss” was the last exhibition at the BeSt Kunstraum. Claudia Sacher, who lives in the UK and travelled to Germany for the exhibition, kept leaving messages for Peter Stohrer. In a way, this kind of communication also suited her artistic approach, so Stohrer kept these message slips.
19.4.2013 – 25.6.2013
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2012
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2011
Patrick Rieve und Torben Röse
Ace of Space
27.05.2011 – 29.6.2011
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2010
Andreas Komotzki
home
2010
Photography
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2009
Peter Stohrer und Dirk Hupe
Bluewhiteblack
2009
Room installation
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2008
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2007
Anne Berlit, Andreas Glauser & Julia Kälin, Dirk Hupe, Dirk Schlichting
Leuchten bei Anbruch der Dunkelheit-Glow at nightfall
Exhibition cycle focusing on the external effect of a spatial installation at dusk. With Dirk Hupe: “Sprachraster”, Dirk Schlichting: “Zwischenbebauung” and a video installation by Julia Kälin and Andreas Glauser. Also on view is an intervention by Anne Berlit on the theme.
19.09.2007 – 27.02.2008
Claudia Hinsch
fest scheint zu stehen-seems certain
06.12.2006 – 30.01.2007
Sculpture
Johanna Schwarz
O die Kurven meiner Sehnsucht durch das Weltall – o, the curves of my beauty throgh the galaxy
20.10.2006 – 23.11.2006
Works on paper, installation
Maki Umehara
Sprung nach oben-Jump Up
11.08.2006 – 28.09.2006
Sculpture
Anne Berlit, Rosy Beyelschmidt, Ralf Gemein, Dirk Hupe, Gunhild Söhn & Peter Stohrer
Aktion Reaktion-Action Reaction
Multi-part exhibition project where one artist responds to the artistic act of the others with their work.
19.05.2006 – 24.06.2006
BeSt Kunstraum – Raum für Gegenwartskunst Essen, 2005
Julia Bünnagel
Dinge und Undinge-Things and Non-Things
26.08.2005 – 22.09.2005
Sculpture
Christian Paulsen
Ex Orbit
15.04.2005-13.05.2005
Slide installation
WBK-Forum Bildender Künstler 1993-1998
| 1999 | Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (G)Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (G) |
| 1998 | „Labor“, 4-teilige Ausstellungsreihe mit 21 Künstlern, (KU) Katalog, 78 Seiten |
| 1996 | „Updating Foto und Video“, 5-teilige Ausstellungsreihe mit 8 Künstlern, (KU) Katalog, 30 Seiten, Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (G) |
| 1995 | „Dirk Hupe – Bob Gramsma”, Ausstellung, (KU) Katalog, 32 Seiten, Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (G) „Peter Tollens – Farbmalerei“, Ausstellung, Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (KU) |
| 1994 | „Zu Zweit“, 8-teilige Ausstellungsreihe mit 17 Künstlern, (KU) Katalog, 74 Seiten, Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (G) |
| 1993 | „Doris Frohnapfel – Attitudes Passionnelles“, Katalog, 34 Seiten, (G) „Frauen I und II“, Katalog, 28 Seiten, Forum Bildender Künstler, Essen (G) |
