Continuation of OPEN SPACES 800 at LWL-TextilWerk Bocholt: Exhibition of all 15 artworks until 31 October 2021!

Waving red veils with gold-embroidered Bocholt motifs, the Bocholt coat of arms on earthenware vases or a Bocholt beech tree sawn into an abstract work of art – these and other fascinating works of art can be admired in the Spinnerei (Industriestrasse 5) in the Batteursaal of the LWL-TextilWerk Bocholt.

The complete presentation of all 15 artworks from the international art project OPEN SPACES 800 will take place here until 31 October 2021:

15 artists participated in OPEN SPACES 800 from 17 to 27 September 2021. Five artists come from Bocholt and the surrounding area, five from the befriended and twin towns and five from different countries around the world.

Here you can take a virtual tour of the exhibition – thanks to TextilWerk for this video:

Art project commemorates 800 years of Bocholt
The art project looked ahead to the 800th anniversary of the town of Bocholt, which will be celebrated in 2022. During the project period, the artists devoted themselves to the terms SPACE STADT (BOCHOLT) and SPACE in all its facets and meanings. Citizens and schools were actively involved in OPEN SPACES 800 with the sub-projects HEIMAT-SKULPTUR and MY SPACES 008.

Proud of the overall exhibition
“The city of Bocholt is proud,” says the head of the Department of Culture and Education, Jule Wanders, “that the LWL-TextilWerk has given us the opportunity to show this fascinating overall exhibition of all the OPEN SPACES works.” The museum’s Batteursaal, for example, features the large-format canvas painting by Marco Büning, who makes a declaration of love to “his” city of Bocholt with every brushstroke. The young Bocholt artist Anabell Weinen created her work in the Stadtmuseum, in which she makes a work of art by Israhel van Meckenem the Younger tangible for blind people through a Braille sculpture.

Printed Bocholt Impressions
The Danish artist Gleb Dusavitskiy transformed a beech trunk, which had to be felled in the Bocholt municipal forest because of the danger of breakage, into an abstract sculpture on the Kubaai site/Spinnerei. The artist Vera DG, who comes from Kharkiv (Ukraine), worked with “augmented and virtual reality art”. The artist Thea Zweerink, who lives in the neighbouring Achterhoek, portrayed people from Bocholt. The special feature: Her three large paintings show people from the past, present and future. Jill Randall and her partner Alan Birch – from the twin town of Rossendale – called on young and old to record their personal impressions of Bocholt in pencil, which were then turned into prints by the artists. The result is a multifaceted collage full of sympathy for Bocholt. Judith Nothnagel from neighbouring Hamminkeln devoted herself to the theme “BOH_Topia”, digitally processing photographs she had taken herself in a painterly-digital way, thus transforming Bocholt locations into enigmatic utopian picture worlds.

Memory of the textile industry
Vagaram Choudhary from India made transparent red fabric panels that he embroidered with gold-embroidered Bocholt motifs – simply fabulous. Kazimieras Salciunas from Akmene sent participating residents on a scavenger hunt through Bocholt: Those who were successful were allowed to create their own souvenir with pyrography tools at the end. Klaus Cordes devoted himself to picture-text collages of Bocholt in 2222! For this, he transformed engravings by Israhel van Meckenem and used them to describe his home town of Bocholt in fictional future stories. Georg Paar from Bocholt made it clear in his wooden object that deep trenches exist in parts of our society, but that bridges can be built.

Nets and manhole covers
Ed van Eeden from the Belgian twin town of Bocholt created clay plates and vases using manhole covers bearing the Bocholt coat of arms. Anneke Savert from Arnhem used wire and wax to materialise memories of long-lost objects. Gu Zhenzhen worked from her hometown Wuxi (China) due to corona. She shows city life in abstract form painted with the typical Chinese brushstrokes, but also mixed with traditional ink drawings. Willeke van Ravenhorst recalls the textile industry of the city of Bocholt by stretching nets of bright pink woollen threads around the Kunsthaus and the LWL-TextilWerk.

Opening hours
The complete exhibition OPEN SPACES 800 can be visited at the LWL-TextilWerk Bocholt on Industriestraße 5 in Bocholt during opening hours Tuesdays – Sundays 10 am – 6 pm until 31 October 2021.

Organisers and supporters of OPEN SPACES 800
The international art project is curated by Verena Winter. OPEN SPACES 800 is organised by the City of Bocholt, Department of Culture and Education in cooperation with the LWL-TextilWerk, Euregio-Kunstkreis im Kunsthaus Bocholt, Europe Direct Information Centre Bocholt, Stadtsparkasse Bocholt and the Grenzhoppers. OPEN SPACES 800 is funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia from the “Heimat-Werkstatt” programme.

Based on the press report of the City of Bocholt

Photos: Joop van Reeken

Video: LW-TextilWerk Bocholt Translated with