The light art festival GOLDSTÜCKE takes place in Gelsenkirchen-Buer. Art projects that work with light or light-based media as artistic material are on display throughout the city center of Gelsenkirchen-Buer. They work with fluorescent materials such as fluorescence, halogen, laser or LED; they use the dialogical properties of light such as light and shadow, reflection and transparency, the light-drawing media of photography and film, the digital media of animation and projection.
The 2024 locations include the Goldbergpark, the Kunstmuseum, the Robinienhof, the Schauburg, St. Urbanus, the Werkstatt für Kunst und Kultur, etc. All artists choose locations that they also see as part of their visual material. All positions are either developed for the location or formatted to fit it perfectly.
Bettina Pelz is the artistic director. The internationally active curator from the Ruhr region specializes in light in the visual arts and has been developing art projects in public spaces for 20 years: “As a curator, I prefer to work site-specifically. Space, time and light are the artistic coordinates for a constantly growing number of artists who make physical light – both natural and artificial – their material. Among the multitude of positions, I am particularly interested today in artistic forms of expression that thematize the performative aspects of light in the examination of urban spaces.”
The GOLDSTÜCKE light art projects are an event organized by the City of Gelsenkirchen’s Department of Culture. They have been held regularly since 2019. The project name refers to the inner-city green space “Goldbergpark”, which was the central location in the first few years.