The Association
Purposes and Aims
These days, an artists’ association faces altogether different tasks than
it did more than fifty years ago. It does not exist solely to provide exhibition opportunities to its
members. Nowadays, all artists have access to the means of presenting their works at many venues, and
they can to formulate their ideas.
With the emergence of new artistic potential for expression,
of new techniques, forms and genres, cooperation between members becomes an obvious choice, while the
path for new art has to be paved simultaneously. The need to explain new artistic modes of expression
cannot be denied. Society’s need for information has grown, and it demands to be met with a heightened
commitment.
In the ensuing decades, competition within the artistic community itself has also
come to a head.
The environment of an association facilitates the bundling of optimal forces to
help gather strengths and to tackle collaborative projects while simultaneously defusing situations
that obstruct creativity. The exchange among artists still remains a vital factor within the
activities of the association.
Cosmopolitan
Attidute
In an era in which grand exhibitions almost exclusively carry international
character, the RKB’s external perspective is one of elementary importance. The exchange with artists
from other countries and with, if at all possible, institutions and educational facilities from other
states is one of the goals the RKB aspires to. The RKB members come from all over the Ruhr Area and,
considering most of them migrated here and that the Ruhr Area has always been marked by
multiculturalism, the danger of clinging to the soil with a local pathos in one’s works has always
been minimal, in any case. Additionally, the Ruhr Area, but especially the city of Essen, has carved
out a profile through its offerings in avantgarde art.
In this, we have to mention Museum
Folkwang, first and foremost, with its impressionist art collection of global standing. The
much-touted structural change within the region also contributed, as has the renowned Folkwang School,
now the Folkwang University of the Arts, with its dancers, interpreters, composers, who quite
literally carried their art into the world, the “Aktive Musik/ Active Music” around world-famous
composer Gerhard Stäbler who has supplied New Music with a breeding ground through myriad actions in
Essen, the numerous international dance festivals at Zollverein, the Design Centre. The City of Essen
has log proven itself as a fertile soil for the arts.
The
Members
The RKB members represent every conceivable stylistic direction and genre:
Painting and graphics, photography, object art, video installation, performance and experimental works
in a multimedia vein hold equal shares.
Support for individual members is as important to the
RKB as the representation of individual groups or of the association as a whole as well as of those
associations with which the RKB collaborates, wherein a growing emphasis is put upon thematic and
curated exhibitions. Quality, artistic autonomy, originality and courage are the benchmarks for
measurement.
Organisation
First Chairman
André Chi Sing Yuen
Kopstadtplatz 12
45127
Essen, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 201 - 616 198 85
Email: yuenart@aol.com
Second
Chairwoman
Carola Engels
Email:
info@carola-engels.com
Treasurer
Christiane Frinke
The Association: A Chronicle
The Founding Years
The
“Ruhrländische Künstlerbund e.V.” (RKB) emerged in the post-war years from a loose coalition of Ruhr
Area artists that went by the name of “Kulturbund Gruppe Ruhr (Cultural Alliance Group Ruhr)”, later
to evolve into the “Verband der bildenden Künstler des Raumes Essen (Federation of Visual Artists of
the Essen Region)”.
It was a time of starting anew, a time when people had to overcome the
catastrophe that was the Second World War. It was also a time that demanded a return to the arts after
it had been trampled underfoot in the so-called “Thousand-Year Reich”. Artists and audience longed to
be reunited. Like phoenix rising from the ashes, modernity was resurrected. Surely not an easy
assignment in a Ruhr Area struggling with housing shortage, ruins, breaking levees on the Emscher,
dismantled industry plants, strike, demonstrations, evacuees, refugees, displaced persons and recently
released prisoners of war. The basics in art and in life had to be discussed. The sheer need for
survival might even have influenced the discourse on art, yet the artists urged to show their works
again and to engage in discussions with each other and the audience. Years of standstill and setback
had to be conquered.
The first larger exhibition during this time took place in the old
Grugahalle during the state exhibition “Dach und Fach” in August of 1949. The exhibition chairs and
the jury were occupied by well-known artistic personalities – painters professor Max Burchartz, Jo
Pieper, Hans Vincenz, sculptor Bruno Krell and architect H.B. Spitmann. In September of the same year,
the RKB was founded. The association counted 161 members, Folkwang professor Max Burchartz, a pupil of
Ferdinand Lègers, became its first chairman. The first big event of the newly constituted RKB was held
at the Grugahalle in June/ July of 1950. Since then, the RKB has consistently and regularly hosted
exhibitions, usually a summer exhibition at the Grugahalle followed by a winter exhibition at Museum
Folkwang. Another reestablishment joined in 1953: the “Wirtschaftsverband Bildender Künstler
Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bezirksverband Ruhr e.V (North Rhine-Westphalian Visual Artists Trade
Association, Ruhr District, registered association)” whose mission it was to take care of the
“professional issues” (as stated in their charter). The RKB’s intentions, however, were of a different
nature: Trade-offs, conversation, and the mutual support for its artist members have been its focus
from the start. And it remained loyal to this principle to this day. In order not to endanger
efficiency, the RKB has perpetually remained restrained in the acceptance of new members. The
admittance of new members, however, is dependent on the proof of artistic quality, in both
associations.
The Visual Artists’ Forum, Essen
The
turning point came in 1961, when the associations, the RKB, the WBK and the Tatkreis, received
residence in the Old Synagogue. The RKB numbered a total of 39 members back then. The “Essener Forum
Bildender Künstler (The Visual Artists’ Forum, Essen)” was founded. Since then, regular exhibitions
have taken place at these spaces.
Within this framework, the RKB showed works from French,
Polish, Finnish, Soviet and Swiss artists, among other things. English art critic J.A. Thwaites was
the first to bring international art into the RKB. He provided the RKB with national and international
publicity. Well-known RKB members such as painters Jo Pieper (1893-1972), Werner Gräf (1901-1978),
Ferdinand Spindel (1913-1980), sculptor Bruno Krell (1903-1976) and illustrator André Tomkins
(1930-1955) lent early significance to the association, which sustained through the continuous work
done by many members, but most of all via the voluntary efforts of the respective chairpersons. We
must mention Hans-Heinrich Pusch who manoeuvred the association’s fate for 15 years before handing the
chair to Arno Fassbender in 1999 (compare with text by Arno Fassbender, Erich Heyn and Eva Schürmann
on the occasion of the association’s 50th anniversary, catalogue, 1999). From 2002 until 2018, artist
and cultural journalist Dr Dagmar Schenk-Güllich conducted the association’s affairs. Thanks to her
international ties as well as to the generous support lent by the City of Essen, especially through
professor Dr Oliver Scheytt, the former Head of the Cultural Department of the City of Essen, and a
well-functioning collaboration with the Werkkreis Bildender Künster (WBK), now situated at the Forum
Kunst und Architektur (Forum Art and Architecture), as well as with national and international
artists’ associations, more than 35 artist exchange projects were conducted during this period
(compare with texts on the RKB’s 60th anniversary).
Anmeldeformular

Would you like to become a member of the RKB Essen?
Download this
admission form and send it back to us with sample work by email or post.