Gregor Schneider
Haus u r 2026
17.10.2026 – 17.1.2027

With Haus u r 2026, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is presenting a wide-ranging exhibition by the internationally renowned artist Gregor Schneider. At its center is his body of work Haus u r, which he has been continuously developing since the 1980s and which ranks among the most influential spatial works in contemporary art.

Haus u r has been internationally recognized since at least 2001, when Schneider was awarded the Golden Lion for Totes Haus u r at the German Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Since then, rooms from this ongoing work have been exhibited in numerous major museums worldwide.

Haus u r, located on Unterheydener Straße in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, has formed the core of Gregor Schneider’s artistic practice since the 1980s. It is not merely a physical site, but simultaneously material and process. Alongside his room archive—his “encyclopedia of rooms”—Schneider has continuously expanded, transformed, and duplicated the building. Born in Rheydt, the artist and his work are deeply rooted in the region. Time and again, he incorporates its social, architectural, and landscape structures into his work—from his own four walls and the birthplace of Goebbels in his neighborhood to the Garzweiler lignite mine, which he utilized as a source of material early on.

The central medium of Schneider’s artistic practice is the construction of rooms within existing spaces. These are not in the form of dioramas, but rather fully constructed rooms consisting of walls, a floor, and a ceiling. These rooms are so closely modeled on reality that they are frequently barely recognizable as constructions added by the artist. Schneider works with the duplication of rooms, people, and objects, as well as with reconstructions of buildings to which he has “no direct access,” as he emphasizes. In addition to his constructed rooms, he seeks further ways of approaching his built reality through film, photography, and—more recently—via live streams and digital scans.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Haus u r body of work (1985–present), the exhibition Haus u r 2026 once again brings this central work to the fore. At the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, constructed rooms, sculptures, photographs, films, and live-stream projections from Haus u r will be brought together.

The exhibition follows a path through everyday architecture—from bathrooms and living rooms to cellars and storage rooms—and offers visitors the opportunity to lose themselves within this multi-layered and ever-evolving body of work.

Starting from a point of apparent normality and familiarity, Schneider creates situations that are simultaneously familiar and unsettling. The spatial shifts and duplications make Haus u r appear as a system that is situated in both Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf at the same time, characterized by continuous transformation. Visitors are placed into a state of perceptual uncertainty that touches upon central aspects of reality, memory, and construction.

To mark the 40th anniversary of Haus u r, a comprehensive spatial experience will take shape at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, in which architecture, sculpture, photography, and video merge into a dense, cohesive whole.