Horst Janssen – Rediscovered!

To mark its 20th anniversary in November 2020, the Horst Janssen Museum was given a new, interactive permanent exhibition. This allows the museum to approach a person and his work in a way that could hardly be more multifaceted: Horst Janssen. He is many things: Oldenburg native and artist, printmaker and exceptional talent, draughtsman and observer, lateral thinker and wordsmith.

In the permanent exhibition on the first floor of the museum, visitors can encounter Janssen in a variety of ways: four themed areas present the artist, his work and his printmaking techniques and repeatedly invite visitors to become active themselves. The most important aim was to give museum visitors a practical understanding of Janssen's complex printing techniques.

Visitors can also look forward to an extensive selection of Horst Janssen's work in the permanent exhibition. Throughout the year, new works are selected and presented in thematic groups. This means that there is always something new to discover, even on repeated visits.

Visitors can find out where and how Janssen lived from the richly illustrated biography, to which one section of the exhibition is dedicated. In an audio station, contemporary witnesses talk about their friend Horst Janssen, business partner, husband and father, draughtsman and Biennale prizewinner, but also about the artist's death.

Horst Janssen is a printmaker and exceptional talent. How did he print his woodcuts, lithographs and etchings? All of Janssen's techniques are presented in three short films. Visitors are also invited to become active themselves at hands-on stations and develop an understanding of the technical connection between printing plates or stones and the impression. 

Horst Janssen is a draughtsman and observer. What inspired him, how did he work artistically? Individual aspects that characterise Janssen's drawing style are explained using examples: his artistic role models or his preference for depicting the ephemeral world. Drawing tables invite visitors to get creative themselves.

Horst Janssen is a lateral thinker and wordsmith. Was he even more of a writer than a visual artist? In any case, he was a book illustrator, author of numerous texts of his own and an attentive reader and ‘utiliser’ of texts by other writers. In Janssen's work, the word often stands alongside the image, reason enough to also give this facet of Horst Janssen a space.