Zentrum für Internationale Lichtkunst

The Centre for International Light Art in Unna is the world’s first and only museum dedicated exclusively to Light Art. As technical advances in lighting technologies began to find reflection in the expressive repertoire of artists, Light Art became established as a specific genre alongside painting, sculpture and photography. In May 2001, a unique presentation space for this contemporary art-form opened in the historical industrial site of Lindenbrauerei Unna. In the labyrinthine underground passages of this former brewery, works of Light Art conveying new levels of meaning and forms of expression are distributed around exhibition space totalling 2,400 square metres. The emblem of the centre, a towering 52-metre-high factory chimney, is visible far and wide.

Exhibitions and projects

The thematic concentration on Light Art makes the centre unique. Twelve internationally renowned light artists have paid tribute to the status of the institution by developing permanent installations specially for the vaulted arches of this heritage site in Unna. Artists represented are Mario Merz, Joseph Kosuth, James Turrell, Mischa Kuball, Rebecca Horn, Christina Kubisch, Johannes Dinnebier, Keith Sonnier, Jan van Munster, François Morellet, Christian Boltanski and Olafur Eliasson. As well as presenting ambitious permanent and temporary exhibitions, the new museum views itself as a forum for discussions, symposiums, conferences and workshops on the subject of light. The museum is undergoing continuing further development (also in regard to the 2010 Cultural Capital): the Light Art work “Third Breath, 2005”, an exhibit enabling visual experience of a new kind, was inaugurated in February 2009.