Cologne is on its way to a new Kunsthalle.

In 2004, a group of Cologne-based culture workers organized under the name DAS LOCH e.V. to promote a future-oriented proposal: the founding of a new Kunsthalle for Cologne with a European focus. Alternative models for a contemporary Kunsthalle should be investigated, developed and tested independent of city guidelines. Using seed capital from a benefit auction, the founding phase team lead by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Vanessa Joan Müller began its work in the summer of 2005 under the programmatic name EUROPEAN KUNSTHALLE.

In its founding period, the European Kunsthalle operated as a virtual institution without a designated space of its own and with no city commission. Formats such as Under Construction, Models for Tomorrow, KölnShow 2 and Spaces of Production explored essential questions about what a contemporary Kunsthalle should be, drawing attention to what became an internationally regarded project. On a local level, the European Kunsthalle indicates lasting effects: the resulting publications, materials and investigations have had positive influence on city politics, spurring considerations for a Kunsthalle in Cologne.

The two-year founding phase came to an end in the summer of 2007 and a new, all-European program team including Astrid Wege (Cologne), Rike Frank (Berlin, Vienna) and Anders Kreuger (Lund, Vilnius) has taken over the European Kunsthalle project.

At the same time, its supporting association das Loch e.V. has transformed into the EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, underscoring the European perspective as an immanent modus operandi and to be further developed in cooperations and projects with other European partners.

As a unique project by it’s genesis and structure, the European Kunsthalle opened it’s own areas of action. Now it has become crucial to establish a more permanent, institutional basis for the European Kunsthalle, even in a continuous dialogue with the city of Cologne.

The European Society for Contemporary Art has made the further institutional development and programmatic work for the European Kunsthalle its sole and primary task.  Committed to this cause is the Board of Trustees, which includes the following members of Cologne art and cultural life:
Rosemarie Trockel (President) – Marcel Odenbach (Vice President) – Meyer Voggenreiter (Treasurer) – Astrid Wege (European Kunsthalle) – Lilian Haberer – Bernd Kniess – Kasper König – Kathrin Luz – Christian Nagel – Stephan Walderdorff