artothek - Space for Young Art

The “artothek - Raum für junge Kunst” (art library - space for young art) was founded in 1973 and has been affiliated with the municipal cultural office since 2008. It is located in the heart of the city, in the neighborhood of Cologne Cathedral and Museum Ludwig.  In the 1950s, the interior of Haus Saaleck, a late Gothic town house, was redesigned to provide a special setting for art lending and regular exhibitions.

The Artothek is an opportunity to become familiar with art. Its art collection currently comprises around 1,600 modern and contemporary works, which are available for loan to anyone interested. For a small fee, you can take one or more works home with you for ten weeks and experience them in your own private surroundings. The selection includes early pioneers such as Florence Henri and Angelika Hoerle, post-war avant-gardists such as Rupprecht Geiger, Karl Otto Goetz, and Yvaral, artists who are hardly known today or world-famous artists such as Joseph Beuys, Roy Lichtenstein, and Niki de Saint Phalle, and above all contemporaries such as Marlene Dumas, Jürgen Klauke, Rosemarie Trockel, Pauline M'Barek, David Shrigley, and Gert & Uwe Tobias. The collection focuses on works on paper, prints, drawings, and watercolors, but also includes photographs, paintings on canvas and nettle, and several sculptures. This offering is also available as part of cultural education projects with children and young people.

At the same time, the “artothek - Raum für junge Kunst” (art library - space for young art) provides information about current art events. In changing exhibitions, artists from Cologne and around the world present their work, ranging from painting to space-related installations and performances. A jury, which includes curators from the Museum Ludwig, the Kölnischer Kunstverein, and KOLUMBA, selects the winners from the applications received. The winners of the Friedrich Vordemberge Scholarship for Fine Arts and the Chargesheimer Scholarship for Media Art also have the opportunity to present their work here.