What does it feel like to walk alone through a house where nothing is what it seems? To mark the 40th anniversary of “Haus u r,” the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is presenting the extraordinary spatial installation by renowned artist Gregor Schneider through January 17, 2027. The project gained international fame in 2001, when the conceptual artist was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale.
When Home Becomes a Labyrinth
The exhibition weaves together reconstructed rooms, sculptures, photographs, films, and innovative livestream projections into a dense, cohesive whole. It leads directly into Schneider’s former family home in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, which he has been continuously transforming since 1985. Since he was 16 years old, he has meticulously doubled the walls, ceilings, and floors here, creating inaccessible interstitial spaces.
What makes this unique is that, since central rooms can only be entered one at a time throughout the duration of the exhibition, the audience directly experiences the oppressive isolation. At the same time, nine live cameras transmit real-time images from the original house in Rheydt to the Kunsthalle, completely blurring the line between reality, memory, and construction. What initially appears to be an ordinary home gradually becomes eerie. You enter a living room, walk through a door, and find yourself facing a wall. A window does not lead outside, but into the next room. And because you are on your own, there is no one to guide you or with whom you can compare your own perceptions. Every step becomes an exploration; every door raises the question of what lies beyond. The sense of disorientation arises not only from the rooms themselves but also from the fact that you encounter them entirely on your own. It is precisely this experience that makes the exhibition “Haus u r 2026” so special.
