The Opening Exhibition
The opening exhibition is the realization of the idea of a glowing, festive signal on the lakeshore - an exemplary and programmatic symbiosis of architecture and art.

The goal of the Kunsthaus´ opening project was to acknowledge the prominent position of the building´s architecture and to establish a collaboration with one or more artists who, in their work, proceed from the architecture. James Turrell, the American light artist, was finally chosen. He will work on the interior and on the exterior with both the given spatial sturcture and the daylight-artificial light concept, as well as use the house "as a canvas for the installation".

James Turrell Installation artist Born 1943 in Los Angeles Studied psychology and mathematics at Pomona College, Claremont, California, and fine arts at the Universtiy of California, Irvine and at Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California. Lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Numerous solo exhibitions, e.g.: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1976), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1980), Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1983), Kunsthalle Basel (1987), Secession, Vienna (1992), Hayward Gallery, London (1993), Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark (1994), Stroom Center for Contemporary Art, Den Haag.

Numerous permanent installations in the landscape.

James Turrel presently works primarily on his "life´s work", the Roden Crater in Arizona. Financing for this project was finally secured through a private foundation. Its completion is set for the year 2000. The resultant time pressure is also a reason for the great reduction of museum- and gallery projects by Turrell during the next few years. This makes the Kunsthaus project even more of a rarity.