Centre for International Light Art

The museum's permanent exhibition shows works by twelve internationally renowned light artists: James Turrell, Keith Sonnier, Mario Merz, Joseph Kosuth, Mischa Kuball, Rebecca Horn, Christina Kubisch, Jan van Munster, François Morellet, Christian Boltanski, Brigitte Kowanz and Olafur Eliasson. Since 2009, the artwork Third Breath, 2005 by American light artist James Turrell is part of the permanent exhibition. It is a camera obscura, consisting of two rooms. In the lower, cubic room (Camera Obscura Space), the visitor sees an image of the sky which is being reflected through a lens on the ground. In the upper, cylindrical room (Sky Space), the sky can be seen directly through a hole in the ceiling. The opening of the artwork was accompanied by the four-month exhibition James Turrell - Geometry of Light. The current temporary exhibition MORELLET shows the last exhibition of works by François Morellet which has been curated by the artist himself, shortly before his death in May 2016. In 2014, the temporary exhibition was Jan van Munster - L ich T (2014). The temporary exhibition ¡DARK! + Dark II (two, too) in 2015/2016 showed works by Anthony McCall, Diana Ramaekers, Regine Schumann, Vera Röhm, and Lucinda Devlin. In addition to the permanent and temporary exhibitions, the center organizes conferences, symposia and workshops, and serves as a forum for discussions. The CILA is a major part of the regional cultural project Hellweg - Ein Lichtweg (Hellweg - A Way of Light), which links light art projects along the historical Westphalian Hellweg travel route. Within a distance of only a few miles around the CILA, works by Rosemarie Trockel, Kazuo Katase, Michael Batz, Claudia Wissmann, and Jan Philip Scheibe are shown.