The Salon-Atelier - new art in the west of Dortmund

A creative quarter is planned in the western part of Dortmund – in the shadow of the U building. An anticipation of things to come is the Salon-Atelier, an open room in which eight young artists create and exhibit their works.
A corner shop with blurry window panes. In it, you find colour tubes, paper boxes and damaged baby dolls: looks like work – and art.

The little shop is a bit obscure, but that is just because there is not much culture in this area otherwise. Adlerstrasse in Dortmund-West, between Rheinische Strasse, the Westpark, and the Dortmund U, is something like the city’s backyard – not too untended, but not very exciting either.

Transformation of a city quarter

I know that neighbourhood from my past: I spent all my civilian service salary on records in the Amsterdam Record Shop across the street. And even longer ago, the street also boasted the Orpheum, a disco (in which Prince did a legendary after show gig in 1988) – today, the location is a car repair shop. And there was a hairdresser at the corner of Adlerstrasse and Sternstrasse…

...but now the door sign says „Salon-Atelier“, a studio collective of eight young artists. Painters Roland Baege, Anne Bekker, Astrid Kämmerling, Frederic Roos and Natalie Roeder, graphic artists Stefan Gutsche, Alischa Diana Leutner and Katja Tönissen, and object artist Ilona Kohut have established the salon in February 2009. Since then, it has turned into something like a showpiece in the western part of Dortmund, because after the opening of the U building, the whole neighbourhood is planned to become a creative quarter. Even Art Magazin has paid a visit already, as has the BR (a TV / radio station).
 

New locations for art in the heart of the Ruhr

„Dortmund doesn’t have many places like that“, says Frederic Roos, a graduate from the Technical University Dortmund currently studying at the Düsseldorf academy of arts. He tells us about exhibition openings with up to 200 visitors – maybe some of them are not as potent as buyers from Düsseldorf, but public interest in the east of the Ruhr area is increasing, with visitors coming from everywhere in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The choice, though, was incidental, influenced by low rents and good location: „We were lucky – our landlady was flexible and agreed with our concept“, says Alischa Diana Leutner who creates her graphics and video installations here. Just now, she is preparing the touring exhibition „Salon en tour“ featuring the artists’ works in the surrounding of former industrial halls in the Ruhr and its environs.
 

Visible change

„We consider the Salon a room for exhibitions, experience, and communication – it reflects and supports the change of the region“, Leutner says. This makes its profile similar to that of its bigger neighbour, the U. The director of the latter, Andreas Broeckmann, already has visited the Salon - and liked the concept. „Maybe we’ll even cooperate one day and show some of our works on one of the new floors“, Frederic Roos says.

The next exhibition in the Salon starts in October 2010. But even before that, the doors are open. „Just come in“, beckons Alischa Diana Leutner. Someone of the creative eight will be busy in the small corner shop anyway – because art is, first of all, hard work.