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In 2023, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf celebrated its 250th anniversary. In honor of this special occasion, a series of projects and events was organized. The anniversary also served as an opportunity to rediscover two collections of the Kunstakademie: the Collection of Prints and Drawings, which contains a vast number of works by artists from the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, as well as the Neue Sammlung (New Collection) with works by professors since 1945. The Collection of Prints and Drawings already played a crucial role in 1773 when the Kunstakademie was founded. Although it contains numerous masterpieces, it was conceived as a collection for teaching: the sketches, revisions, and completed works were intended to show students the process of how art is created. Currently, the collection comprises around 40,000 pieces. Since 1932, it has been on permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, now the Kunstpalast.
To mark the anniversary year, each student at the Kunstakademie was invited to take part in this publication project. All participants were given a double-page spread in the book to present one of their own works on the right-hand page and a work from one of the two collections-chosen by the students themselves-on the opposite left-hand page.
The collection may be viewed in novel, diverse ways through this juxtaposition of works, creating a dialog between the current works by young artists and the historical works from earlier centuries. The result is an unusual publication-half of it is a book by artists, the other half a collection catalog-that invites us to explore a new, comparative perspective.
