KREFELD.- In the 2026 exhibition year at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, the productive dialogue between art and craft takes center stage—from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Museum Director Katia Baudin explains: “The connection between the fine and applied arts is part of the Kunstmuseen Krefeld’s very DNA. This interdisciplinary mindset also provides the framework for our 2026 exhibitions: they demonstrate how closely artistic practices can be tied to craft techniques and materials, and how compellingly both historical and contemporary positions evolve at the intersection of art and design.”

HL HE Dialog: What Comes After Art
April 19–September 6, 2026

Acaye Kerunen at Haus Lange

The power of Acaye Kerunen’s practice (born 1981 in Kampala, Uganda) lies in her unique fusion of traditional natural materials and a collaborative, community-based approach to artmaking. Working with handwoven textiles created collectively by women in her home region, Kerunen develops sculptural and spatial installations that tell stories of craft traditions, social rituals, and structures of cooperation. Dance, song, and language are integral parts of these communities, which Kerunen connects to her works through performative actions. The exhibition at Haus Lange, where she presents an immersive installation combining her sculptural works with newly developed performances, will be her first in Germany.

Bernhard Fuchs at Haus Esters

Bernhard Fuchs (born 1971 in Haslach an der Mühl, Austria) is part of the established generation of the Düsseldorf School of Photography. With his series Heustöcke (Haystacks), he has completed a new body of work shown almost in its entirety—forty photographs—in Haus Esters. The series depicts the storage of hay on the floors of various barns in the artist’s native Upper Austria. These haystacks, once common in rural life, are now increasingly disappearing. Through this series, Fuchs reflects not only on traditional agricultural processes of storing and producing materials, but also on the nature and temporality of photography itself.

The exhibition Bernhard Fuchs. Heustöcke is organized in cooperation with the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (Austria), where it will be shown in 2027.

Curator: Sylvia Martin

Beautiful Anarchy. Johan Thorn Prikker and His Time
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum (KWM)
May 17, 2026–August 2027

Between socially engaged “artistic labor” and spiritual exploration, between ornament and abstraction—Johan Thorn Prikker (1868–1932) stands as one of the most influential artists of the 1910s and 1920s in the Rhineland. His vision united painting, applied arts, and architecture into a total work of art. Trained in the Netherlands, Thorn Prikker came to Krefeld in 1904 and later taught in Düsseldorf and Cologne. The Kunstmuseen Krefeld hold the world’s most extensive collection of Thorn Prikker’s work—around one thousand pieces, including completed stained-glass windows, posters, paintings, and designs for textiles, murals, and mosaics. For the first time since the 1960s, this exceptional collection will be presented in a comprehensive exhibition that situates the artist’s multifaceted oeuvre within the museum’s holdings.

Collection Satellite #10: Emma Talbot
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum (KWM)
May 17, 2026–January 24, 2027

Since 2018, the Collection Satellite series has opened up new and unexpected perspectives on the Kunstmuseen Krefeld’s collection and history. For the tenth edition, British artist Emma Talbot (born 1969 in Stourbridge, UK) responds to one of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum’s most significant monumental works: the mural cycle Ages of Life (Lebensalter) created by Johan Thorn Prikker in 1923. With an expansive installation in the Thorn Prikker Hall and additional works, Talbot will present her vividly painted visions of the life cycle—set within a multi-layered, interwoven, and unstable present. Talbot is known for her expressive installations made of painted silk, sculptural ensembles, drawings, and film animations.

Curator: Magdalena Holzhey

HL HE Dialog: Art x Craft
October 4, 2026–March 7, 2027

Kunst Hand Werk Brücke. The Applied Arts of the Brücke Artists, Haus Lange
The exhibition Kunst Hand Werk Brücke focuses for the first time on the craft practices of the early 20th-century artist group Die Brücke. Beyond their expressionist paintings and prints, the Brücke artists actively engaged with craft: they designed furniture, everyday objects, stationery, stained glass, jewelry, and textiles in pursuit of a holistic lifestyle where art and life were inseparable. Folk craftsmanship and non-European art served as key sources of inspiration. The Kunstmuseen Krefeld present this exhibition at Haus Lange—the place where collector and industrialist Hermann Lange assembled his Expressionist collection in the 1920s already.

Kunst Hand Werk Brücke is organized by the Brücke-Museum Berlin in collaboration with the Kunstmuseen Krefeld.

Curator: Ann-Kathrin Hörrlein

Slavs and Tatars: Handsschob, Haus Esters

In parallel, the internationally renowned artist collective Slavs and Tatars has been invited by the Kunstmuseen Krefeld to curate an exhibition at Haus Esters. Working at the intersection of language, politics, religion, and identity, the collective draws its narrative and visual material from the cultural diversity of “Eurasia.” Together with a group of invited artists, Slavs and Tatars explore craft as a vessel of collective cultural and social meaning, reexamining the relationship between fine and applied art from a contemporary perspective. The “rivalries” they observe—between art and craft, innovation and tradition, individual and collective—form the guiding theme of their exhibition at Haus Esters.

Curators: Slavs and Tatars
Project assistance: Linn Küsters
Artistic direction: Katia Baudin

International exhibition
MUSEUM WITHOUT BORDERS—MUSÉES HORS FRONTIÈRES: Part Two!
Art—Design / Dunkirk—Krefeld
Frac Grand Large–Hauts-de-France
January 24 to August 30, 2026

MUSEUM WITHOUT BORDERS brings together two museums with a shared border-crossing attitude from the sister cities Dunkirk and Krefeld through a collection exchange. In the Summer of 2024, the Frac's art and design collection moved into Haus Lange and Esters. Now, over 150 works from Kunstmuseen Krefeld's collection will be shown at the Frac Grand Large, highlighting the museum's experimental attitude and history.

Artistic direction: Katia Baudin, Keren Detton
Curator of the exhibition in Dunkirk: Keren Detton