MKM – SPECTACULUM MAGAZINE

STEFAN TILBURGS

// Stefan is a Belgian graphic designer and photographer with more than twenty years of experience in the advertising and marketing world. His passions are design, photography, architecture and running his own design studio. When he visited the Museum Küppersmühle in Duisburg, he was most struck by the architecture.

Stefan was born in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied Graphic Design in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. After working in several agencies, he started his own company, Studio Wasabi – The Freelance Agency, where he looks for the right freelancers in design, photo or video photography or marketing.

In his free time he is always busy with his own photography. “ I want to make at least one picture a day. So I keep sharp and always explore new things,“ he says. He always loved black and white photography because it tells a clear story without the distraction of colours.

“Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.”

Le Corbusier

What draws you to the arts?

“Art is an exploration. The right place and atmosphere are very important to me. And of course the interaction with the art itself.”

What impresses you most about the museum you visited and photographed for this series?

“At the Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst in Duisburg I was impressed by the stairs. The light was really wonderful. Actually the museum was closed for renovation. But one expo was still open, only the stairs and the light were more impressive to me than the actual art that was showing at that time. The graphical structure of the concrete of the stairs where the light was shining on the concrete wall.”

The Museum Küppersmühle – MKM is located in a former industrial harbour area of Duisburg, Germany. Sir Norman Foster designed the masterplan for the redevelopment of what was a derelict inland harbour into a multifunctional service park. The MKM is home to one of the most extensive collections of German post-war art, foremost paintings by the most influential artists from the 1950s to the present day. Designed by the architects Herzog & de Meuron, the former mill and storage building was transformed into a 3,600 m² exhibition space on three floors. The architecture is striking with lofty 6-meter high ceilings, grey Turkish basalt floors, and ceiling-high window slits that were cut into the building‘s listed facade.

One of the most striking elements of its architecture is the staircase, and it is this that caught Stefan´s attention. It is a winding tower-like structure made from terracotta-coloured exposed concrete. Stefan´s black and white photographs highlight the structures, shapes and light effects inside the museum.

Click on the photos to see the full image with title, some images are cropped for layout.