Galerie Schmela

Galerie Schmela stands on Mutter-Ey-Straße in Düsseldorf, in a building designed by Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck. Alfred Schmela founded the gallery there in 1957. It began in a small Old Town shop, where Yves Klein’s monochrome paintings received their first German exhibition. Yves Klein’s paintings opened the programme to avant-garde art in Germany. In 1961, the ZERO event marked a pivotal moment for the ZERO group. Joseph Beuys presented his first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery there. During it, he performed his action explaining pictures to a dead hare.

In 1971, the gallery moved into Aldo van Eyck’s purpose-built building on Mutter-Ey-Straße. It became a listed monument in 1996. Its layered masonry façade includes visible concrete lintels. Raw pumice concrete walls and marble floors distinguish the interior from a typical white-cube gallery. After Alfred Schmela died in 1980, Monika and Ulrike continued operations until the building changed hands in 2008.

Since 2009, the site has belonged to Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen and hosted exhibitions and symposia. Hans Mayer and his son Max have organised exhibitions there since 2020. American artists Sam Francis and Robert Indiana appeared alongside Gerhard Richter and the ZERO group. The most memorable detail remains Beuys explaining pictures to a dead hare.