June 4, 2023 is our annual Neighbour Day. On this special day, Kasteel Wijlre estate invites all its neighbours to come and see the exhibitions, enjoy the gardens or visit the Castle. Guided tours of our exhibitions start at 12:00. You can walk into the Castle and enjoy, among other things, the tapestry installation that Peter Struycken made for the dining room. Free admission for all citizens of Gulpen-Wittem.

RE___GIO is a project by Anneke Eussen (NL) and Gert Robijns (BE), in which the artists explore characteristic aspects of the landscape in various locations on both sides of the Meuse. How has the landscape changed over the past century under the influence of humankind? How do current questions about climate change, intensive agriculture or tourism affect the landscape, and what can we do to achieve a new ecological awareness?

From 17 May - 27 August 2023, an exhibition with work by Daniel Godínez Nivón (MX, 1985) will be presented in the Coach House.

Choir walk at Kasteel Wijlre estate

The Maastricht choir Lingua e Musica takes you on a musical walk along special sites at the estate, under the theme 'Homeward'.

In case of bad weather, the programme will be taking place inside.

On 28 may at 3 pm, Kasteel Wijlre estate will launch the special edition The Minga of Birds at Dawn, with a conversation between Xander Karskens (director of Kasteel Wijlre estate and curator of Windbloom),  Maartje Fliervoet (visual artist and initiator/curator Manifold Books) and Daniel Godínez Nivón, about his artistic practice. Subsequently, the bird walk 'In search of the Marsh Warbler' will take place at 4 pm, led by Peter Alblas (CNME Maastricht).

After the floods of July 2021 that inundated the estate and severely damaged the Hedge House, the renovated art pavilion reopens with the exhibition Trouble wandering (to eternity), curated by our new director Xander Karskens.

The exhibition runs from 21 September 2022 to 5 May 2023.

On Sunday 26 March at 14:00, the performance SEEK THERMAL will take place in the Hedge House, a joint transdisciplinary research project by Chiara Monteverde, Thomas Swinkels and Audrey Apers, with Meta Knol as tutor.

The performance and the subsequent sidetalk will take place in collaboration with Schritt_macher Festival and curator Karin Post, within the framework of the (S)PACES programme.

For more information and tickets: https://schrittmacherfestival.nl/sidetalk-spaces/

Two Kasteel Wijlre estate tapestries by Nathalie Brans to be seen in Kamer Eijck of the Coach House.

Garden route and exhibition

In the garden route '10 leaves', Milah van Zuilen (1998) gives the visitor a new perspective on the Castle Garden and its historical trees. Apart from this route, she presents the results of her artistic research and fieldwork at the estate in the Coach House. Here she also shows work that she made during the pandemic in her studio in the forests of the Czech Republic. ‘10 Leaves' is her first exhibition in the Netherlands.

Milah van Zuilen studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy and the University of Wageningen. In 2021, she won the Ron Mandos Young Blood Award. She combines ecological fieldwork with her artistry and is intrigued by the contrast between the complexity of nature and man's urge for order and classification. ‘10 Leaves' is her first exhibition in the Netherlands.

In 2021 Kasteel Wijlre estate presented the international group exhibition Spirit of Kindergarten about the relationship between the ideas of the German educationalist Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852) and contemporary art and architecture. In a playful way, the exhibition connects the work of contemporary artists Francis Alÿs, Belèn Uriel, Michel François, Otto Berchem, Eva Rothschild, David Renggli, Irma Cohen, Yonatan Vinitsky and Erwin Wurm with prominent representatives of Minimalism such as Ad Dekkers, Bob Bonies and Donald Judd and the architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Herman Hertzberger.

Kasteel Wijlre’s woods has two permanent artworks by Giuseppe Penone (1947, Garessio, IT): Pathway Tree and Bronze Tree (1997). This presentation in the Coach House features the original designs, moulds, photography and printed matter from the artwork’s realization.

Kasteel Wijlre estate presents a 3D painting that covers the interior of Hedge House art pavilion and a solo exhibition by artist Peter Struycken (The Hague, 1939) in the Coach House.

On the occasion of the eightieth birthday of visual artist Peter Struycken, Kasteel Wijlre estate presents the unique project P. Struycken - Colour: Profusion and Variability.

The project shows a 3D integrated colour work as a transformation of the Hedge House. At the same time, a retrospective exhibition of Struyckens dynamic colour spaces can be seen in the Coach House.

P. Struycken (The Hague, 1939) is a pioneer of digital art. He has been using the computer since 1968 in the design process of his work. Struycken researches colour from his early artistry. Fascinated by the complexity of colour in the everyday world, which is visible to everyone, he views it without preconceived value and dedicates himself in his artworks to studying its boundless variety, coherence and changeability.
From his first experiments with a computer-controlled colour television, the concept of colour space in the work of Struycken plays a key role. These colour spaces also form the starting point for the transition of the Hedge House and the retrospective exhibition.

Kasteel Wijlre presents, in collaboration with Lismore Castle Arts (Ireland), the international group exhibition Traces. With works by 10 contemporary artists, whose contributions are interwoven with artworks from the (former) collection of Jo and Marlies Eyck, Traces explores relationship between art and nature. The exhibition is presented in the Hedge House, the Coach House and the Garden.

With: Jean-Marc Bustamante – Alan Butler – Ger van Elk – Anne-Charlotte Finel – Michel François – Noémie Goudal – Martin Healy – Siobhán Hapaska - Tony Matelli – Giuseppe Penone – Diana Scherer – Thomas Trum – Sanne Vaassen – Michael John Whelan.

Kasteel Wijlre estate presents the first solo exhibition in the Netherlands by visual artist Tim Eitel (1971, Leonberg (DE)). Over the past fifteen years, Tim Eitel has given a new impetus to painting in the contemporary art world.

‘What is the brain, if not an immense and natural palimpsest? Such a palimpsest is my brain; such a palimpsest, oh reader! is yours. Everlasting layers of ideas, images, feelings, have fallen upon your brain softly as light.’

The visitor is invited to enter Kasteel Wijlre’s 18th-century Coach House for an exhibition exploring this idea of Charles Baudelaire. On both floors, the interlinked spaces include works by ten international artists. The works share a complex character, discreetly transcending their disciplines while conveying distinctive narratives.

With: Eylem Aladogan, Katinka Bock, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Aurélien Froment, Navid Nuur, Takashi Tawashima, Roman Ondák, Dominique Petitgand, Francisco Tropa, Clemens von Wedemeyer

'To be an artist is to take people on an adventure, or to have an adventure yourself and hoping that others will follow' Klaas Kloosterboer.

Kasteel Wijlre presents a solo exhibition by artist Klaas Kloosterboer (1959) in the Hedge House art pavilion. The exhibition surveys thirty years of his practice.

In this second edition of the Conversations long-term programme, Kasteel Wijlre estate presents a solo exhibition by artist Chaim van Luit (1985, Heerlen). This exhibition focuses on a dialogue between Chaim van Luit and Jo Eyck (1929, Heerlen), art collector and founder of the country estate.

A solo exhibition of work by Lithuanian painter Ričardas Vaitiekūnas, featured paintings from different periods of his eventful career and curated by guest curator Kestutis Šapoka. Vaitiekūnas (1940) lives and works in Vilnius.

The exhibition Colouring consists of a unique overview of twenty chalices which Guido Geelen (Thorn, 1961) has made during his artistic career.

Since the 1980s, sculptor Guido Geelen has consistently given new impetus to Dutch ceramics. Estate founders Jo and Marlies Eijck bought Geelen’s first chalice piece in 1988. This work in red baked clay formed the starting point for a series of now twenty chalices, presented together for the first time in this exhibition. For this occasion, Geelen has made four new chalices.

In the forest of the estate, a monumental installation is installed as a reflection of the exhibition in the Hedge House.

Despite being world aware, the ten artists in The Mystic Gardener exhibition explore, seemingly stoically, the inscrutability of art and their work in dialogue with nature.

The exhibition Ad Dekkers (1938–1974) marked Jo and Marlies Eijck’s strong commitment to the artist Ad Dekkers, whose work formed the heart of their collection. In a relatively short period from the mid-sixties to 1974, Ad Dekkers built an interesting and influential oeuvre of reliefs, sculptures, and drawings in which the means of the image (colour, shape, line) are brought back to its essence.

Conversations #1 is the first edition of a multi-year programme at the Coach House of Kasteel Wijlre estate. Each edition features two or three artists, filmmakers, architects, or designers, all born and raised in the Euroregion, at different phases of their careers.

Conversations #1 features the work of filmmakers Miriam Gossing (Siegburg (DE), 1988) & Lina Sieckmann (Engelskirchen (DE), 1988) and visual artist Esther Janssen (Maastricht, 1976).

(T)HERE, curated by Ko van Dun, was an exhibition based on the collection of the ART21 collector’s group and is supplemented by loans from the collections G+W and the Bonnefantenmuseum (acquired from the Jo and Marlies Eijck Collection). (T)HERE was an exhibition about an increasingly complex and layered world, including images from far and near, real or virtual, and imagined and seen. The exhibition featured artists with a strong commitment to today’s world. Looking for new relationships, and using the imagination as a tool, they try to penetrate deeper into a complex reality.

Kasteel Wijlre estate presents a unique project about one of the greatest avant-garde legends of the twentieth century: Gordon Matta-Clark.

At the Hedge House contemporary art pavilion, the project includes a special selection of many previously unseen collages, personal objects, photographs, drawings, and video works. In the historic Coach House, there is a reconstruction of his culinary project FOOD (SoHo, New York (1971–1974)), including dinners and lectures.

Far from the Madding Crowd was an exhibition about paradoxical moments of isolation and exclusion in crowds.

A selection of graphic designer Baer Cornet’s calendars for Verfindustrie Jac Eyck (Jac Eyck Paint Industry), designed between 1978 and 2000, will be displayed in the Salon of the Coach House until 12 November. Baer Cornet’s designs are characterised by the use of primary colours and white and a restricted number of sans-serif typefaces such as Monotype Grotesque, Frutiger, Futura, and Gill.

A special permanent addition to the Kasteel Wijlre estate’s presentation spaces is the Kamer Eijck.

On the occasion of the final weekend of Cut, Split & Eat, a festive finissage will be organised on 30 June at 17:30hrs. During this finissage, Marja Bloem (former conserver of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) will talk about de relationship between food and art in the work of Gordon Matta-Clark and his colleagues, and Flor Bex will share his memories about the collaboration with Gordon Matta-Clark for the project Office Baroque. During the finissage, small dishes and drinks will be served in the spirit of the culinary artistic project FOOD, that Carol Goodden led with Gordon Matta-Clark from 1971 until 1973 in New York.

Please note the finissage is fully booked.

On May 19, Carol Goodden (FOOD co-founder, artist, and former dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company) talked about her artistic collaboration with Gordon Matta-Clark. During a conversation with art collector Harold Berg,  she shared memories about the culinary project FOOD and living and working with Gordon Matta-Clark. Meanwhile, a three course dinner was served. The dinner lecture will took place in the Coach House, where a reconstruction of the FOOD project is shown with accompanying documentation and documentaries.

Until 2 July, Kasteel Wijlre estate presents the exhibition Cut, Split & Eat about Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978) – one of the avant-garde legends of the seventies. As part of this project, Kasteel Wijlre estate invited Carol Goodden, former partner of Gordon Matta-Clark and dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, for a programme of events in Maastricht and Wijlre.

What About a Garden examines the significance of the garden for our thinking and agency. A garden can be enchanting; it can comfort, calm, and relax. However, gardens can also unsettle and provoke. The tension between growth and decline, awareness and unknowingness, and stagnation and life, unearths the garden’s inherent conflicts; a friction synonymous with one’s being and spirit.

Family Tree – Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection was the first time Chinese art is shown at the Kasteel Wijlre estate.

In autumn 2014, as part of the artist residency programme at Contretype, the Brussels centre for contemporary photography, Maastricht-based photographer Kim Zwarts (1955) studied the genius loci of the peristyle of the Brussels Palais de Justice.  The resulting 53 photographs were presented at the Hedge House in dialogue with a selection of 14 large-scale prints from his long-term American project, US.0916, which Zwarts worked on from 2009 to 2016.

This monumental installation by Stephen Wilks reflects on the balance between nature, humankind, and our living environment.

On the ground floor of the Coach House, Kasteel Wijlre estate in cooperation with the Plastic Soup Foundation presented the installation TruCost Super-M-Art by the artist duo Dirty Beach. The installation also provided the setting for an education programme. The TruCost Super-M-Art exhibition demonstrated, in a confrontational manner, how waste is removed from rivers and seas. At first sight, it seems like any other supermarket.