CHARLY. Karl-Heinz Rummeny 1956-2022 Leben, Arbeit, Sammlung, Werk

In honor of Karl-Heinz Rummeny, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is showing an overview exhibition of his life and collection.

"Bye, Bye my beloved parking garage. Last Monday I said goodbye alone to the space where I organized exhibitions for 24 years, in the beginning with the 2 friends Jost and Gregor, from 2008 alone. 184 exhibitions, over 400 artists have shown their works here. At the end of last week, the building was now demolished to make way for a new building. But it was not the great space with its proportions and its modesty in the midst of beautiful nature, that was also, but it was mainly the energy that was felt here, the energy of art and its producers. And that lives on. Personally, I continue anyway, and actually I'm looking forward to the new places and to the future. In the place of the parking garage or in the immediate vicinity, I will plant an oak tree with basalt stone in honor of Joseph Beuys. The money for it has already been donated, but I would like to plant more trees in Düsseldorf ... Then part of my Beuys collection will be exhibited in 4 weeks in Belgrade at the Goethe Institute and I will travel there and also give a lecture on the works of Beuys. There are also plans for next year. But for now I would like to say thank you, also thank you to the association, which has provided me with a beautiful space here for 24 years and thank you to all those involved and helpers. There will certainly be another PARKHAUS exhibition in the Malkastenpark and a second volume with the exhibition documentation from 2011-2021 will also be published. But thanks also to the room, which has played along so great and in which Michael Sailstorfer hid a diamond in 2016, which has now also landed in the rubble. Here in this room FREEDOM was possible, precisely because it was so unpretentious and "went along with everything", even if without heating. And it was not so damp, most of the time the room was "dry" and a beautiful stage, a shelter of art, a treasure room. The memories of the many exhibitions will remain....." Karl-Heinz Rummeny on Facebook, July 28, 2021

Karl-Heinz Rummeny, born in Bad Lippspringe in 1956, died in Düsseldorf in 2022, whom the older ones among his friends called Charly, loved and lived for art. His career and activities were enormously varied: whether as an artist, art historian, author, art dealer (at Artax), collector or exhibition manager in the PARKHAUS in the park of the Düsseldorf artists' association Malkasten, his enthusiasm and passion were legendary, his small exhibition space an important center of the scene.

Rummeny first studied art history in Cologne, then came to Düsseldorf to Gerhard Richter, who referred him to Timm Ulrichs to study art education at the Münster Art Academy. After studying briefly with Ulrichs, he returned to the Rhine, to the Hochschule and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Gerhard Hoehme and Fritz Schwegler, where he graduated as an art educator.

In 2008, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf presented a survey exhibition of the first 15 years of PARKHAUS, number 75 in the series. The 180th exhibition at PARKHAUS, which was also to be almost the last, was dedicated to himself and his art: "some early works and a new one" (October 24 - November 11, 2020).

Now the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf would like to honor the life and work of Karl-Heinz Rummeny once again, in an exhibition in four parts: on his work, his collection, "his Beuys" and his PARKHAUS. The project is conceived as a cooperation with the artists' association Malkasten, of which Karl-Heinz Rummeny was an honorary member and which planted an oak tree in the Malkastenpark in his memory on May 6, 2023.

The exhibition is curated by Jost Wischnewski and Gregor Russ with Rosilene Luduvico and Takeshi Makishima, in collaboration with Alicia Holthausen, Gregor Jansen and Jörg Schlürscheid from Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.