Dear Visitors,

Villa Merkel is currently undergoing exhibition remodelling and is closed.

We look forward to welcoming you back for the opening of the exhibitions "Hungry Ghosts" by Serena Ferrario and "Where is my Place in this World" by Ramazan Can. 

March, 1st, 5 pm!

02 of March - 09 of June 2025

Serena Ferrario: Hungry Ghosts

Serena Ferrario (*1986 in Crema near Milan) develops walk-in installations from drawings, video recordings and collected objects. Born in Italy to a Romanian mother and an Italian father, she grew up in Germany and Italy. Her works thematise these intercultural experiences and the imprints they have left on her. In her installations, she addresses fundamental themes such as family, friendship, love, fear and loss, as well as the social conditions that young people encounter in Italy, Germany and Romania. Ferrario offers visitors a variety of intellectual points of reference and a multi-layered aesthetic experience.

We cordially invite you to the opening on 1st March at 5 pm. 

02 of March - 09 of June 2025

Ramazan Can: Where is my Place in this World?

The exhibition ‘Where is my Place in this World?’ by Ramazan Can (*1988 in Manisa, Turkey) at Villa Merkel is the Turkish artist's first solo museum exhibition in Europe, together with the parallel exhibition at the Gustav-Lübcke-Museum in Hamm. The focus is on series of works that deal with the political, cultural and spiritual issues of his origins and that characterise his biography and his work. Can combines familiar visual habits from the Western canon of art history with pictorial traditions from Anatolia, shamanism and references to contemporary Turkish events. In his exhibition, he presents sculptural positions with graphic approaches and painting.

We cordially invite you to the opening on 1st March at 5 pm. 

Since February 2019

BELLE & APHRODITE

Augmented Reality

by Barbara Herold

In the app BELLE & APHRODITE for smartphone or tablet, it is possible to experience a walk-in audio-visual metamorphosis of virtual plants.

The 3D plant BELLE extends across the entire Merkelpark. As an interactive form-cloud, it leads visitors, on the basis of data regarding their location and movement, to a virtual rose at the centre of the park.

APHRODITE was designed for the skylit atrium. In recurrent audio-visual loops, the 3D installation develops into a Phalaenopsis, a familiar type of orchid. APHRODITE can be viewed from all perspectives and, in its overlapping of simulation space and actual space, plays with the experience of abstraction, proportional relationships, proximity and distance.

Barbara Herold (*1977) directs her attention to the shaping of reality through the media. She investigates structures and phenomena which have established themselves through the influence of media technology on society; she develops her own systems on the basis of prevalent design practices such as computation and algorithms. Her works arise in the dynamic field between analogue and digital technology.

Download App BELLE - APHRODITE

App Store & Google Play Store