Cultural excursion to Meerbusch near Duesseldorf. Say “M” for museum.

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list”

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list”. This now very well-known quote from Susan Sontag has probably become a familiar word meanwhile. On postcards and refrigerator magnets, and as a motto for countless travel blogs and online travel magazines or cultural excursion.

This summer is very different for most people. For many, the exotic distance has turned into an equally exotic close neighbourhood, at least if you understand “exotic” in the literal sense of the word, as “unusual” and “eccentric” or “strange”. Because in the series Madagascar, Memphis or Milan are now also Mannheim or Mönchengladbach.

Macao. Mauritius. Meerbusch.

Meerbusch? Admittedly, “Meerbusch” near Düsseldorf is not exactly a place of longing for summer travel planning. More a place for a business trip to Duesseldorf, Neuss or Krefeld. For passing through and stopping over, on the way, either north to the sea, or the other way round to the south, into the mountains. Or for an overnight stay, just before taking the plane from Duesseldorf airport to go on holiday. In short, nothing for the extended summer holidays, but definitely a worthwhile destination for a few days “in between”, a small cultural excursion with a change of perspective, which is usually quite encouraged by a change of scenery. What you can do then here?

cultural excursion to the neighbourhood

And there’s a whole lot to be said for that. For example, a cultural excursion, right next door, to Duesseldorf. Very urban. Only 15 tram minutes away. The new Duesseldorf “Art:walk48” Culture Ticket offers six Duesseldorf museums at once.  For 25,00 € you get a ticket to six distinguished museums: Kunstpalast, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20/K21, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, NRW-Forum and KIT – Kunst im Tunnel. All in all, the museums offer a varied walk through recent art history. The Renaissance and the Baroque are represented as well as the Düsseldorf School of Painting in the Kunstpalast, or classical modernism in the K20, contemporary as in the K21, or even “brand new”, actually from today, as in the KIT. The “Art:walk48” card allows access to the permanent collections as well as the current special exhibitions.

Or, however, completely relaxed, to a cultural excursion outside the city and in the middle of greenery: The cultural area Hombroich. A short drive away, and close to Neuss, there is a very special art space that is actually one of my personal favourites.

A cultural excursion to Insel (=island) Hombroich. A very special island.

If you take the ancient Greek term “museum” quite literally, it means “sanctuary of the muses”. And there are many such muses. For example for painting, architecture and sculpture, for dance and music, poetry and literature, but also for astronomy and science.  In the cultural area of Hombroich Island, they are all present and enter into a very special relationship with nature.

The cultural venue presents a top-class permanent exhibition of contemporary and modern art of various genres. A cultural excursion  from photography, painting and drawing or graphic arts to architecture and sculpture. All the more, the buildings themselves are, as it were, walk-in sculptures. The art they house does range from Schwitters and Arp to Yves Klein, they show Matisse and Cézanne, but also archaeological artefacts from Asia, Africa, America and Oceania. There are special shows, but also lectures and concerts. In addition, the institution offers artists, writers, musicians or philosophers a living and working space in nature as “artists in residence”.

The cultural space Insel Hombroich is an offer and an invitation to appropriate this space for oneself and to explore it in the literal sense of the word. A cultural excursion without any didactic teaching. Without signs or explanatory panels, works of art present themselves in a natural environment that is very carefully preserved. By the way, also without any artificial lighting, not even in the rooms. The place shows itself in daylight. A real summer museum, that is.