Overview
DEEN
A huge industrial hall from above, a glowing sphere of light in the middle, bamboo in planters, white walls and visitors spread out
On Site · Story 23 · October 1, 2026

A Foundry Full of Art

TraceThought
This story picks up a thread: A new bed: exhibitions I visit, and what I bring back from them.
Trace

The way to NordArt begins surprisingly unspectacularly, with an access road, a few bicycle racks and a building with a green glass facade. Only a few steps further does the park open up, and between old trees, a pond and wide lawns the first sculptures appear. Some are so big that an entire guided tour fits into their shadow, others so small that you almost overlook them as you walk past. I was there on October 1, with my camera, and stayed well into the afternoon.

The Carlshütte was founded in 1827, as an iron foundry and as the first industrial settlement in what were then the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Casting went on here until 1997. After that Hans-Julius Ahlmann, a shareholder of the ACO Group, took over the site, and since 1999 NordArt has taken place in the old halls every summer. Art did not replace the foundry, it moved in with it. Steel girders, rough walls, pits in the floor and dark corners with rusty machinery are still there, and some works look different against this background than they would in a white museum gallery.

01
“Art did not replace the foundry. It moved in with it.”
The sculpture park
The access road to the grounds with trees, bicycle racks and a building with a green glass facade
In the sculpture park
A white, larger-than-life running figure on the lawn, a group of visitors in front of it
Su Xinping, Gathering, 2021, bronze · special project “Landscape of Thought”
A tall sculpture of many curved, rust-brown slats on a pale plinth in the park
Jan Dostál, Toroid, 2025, Corten steel · (catalogue) “inviting viewers to wander beneath them”
A large sculpture of red weathering steel with angular forms, a visitor beneath it
Jörg Plickat, Dialogue Beyond Borders, 2025/2026, Corten steel · “a call to move beyond front lines … and to return to diplomacy”
A red cube floating at an angle above the path, beside it the trunk of a plane tree
Matteo Marchetti, Big Fat Red Cube, 2024, steel, paint · “At the centre of my work is air.”
A pond with water lilies and pale steles in the water, lawn, trees and a red sculpture behind
In the sculpture park
A man walks over stepping stones by the pond, sculptures on the bank behind
In the sculpture park
A black, winding sculpture like a folded ribbon on a grey stone plinth
In the sculpture park
A slender seated figure made of a mesh-like material with very long legs on the lawn
Michal Gabriel, Buddha, 2017–2021, bronze · (catalogue) “meditation through movement”
A white stacked stone sculpture on a plinth, visitors on a bench under trees behind it
Tuvshinjargal Jambal, Entwined Through Three Times, 2025, Mongolian marble
A field of many large boulders, a tower of stacked stones on one of them, a long white hall behind
In the sculpture park
A view through an opening in a pale stone sculpture out onto lawn and trees
In the sculpture park
A tall white stone form with cut openings on a plinth, old trees behind
Nando Álvarez, Rain, 2016, Portuguese marble, created at the NordArt Symposium 2016
A mighty beech with wide roots, sculptures far away in the park
In the sculpture park
A tower of rust-red hexagonal frames on the lawn, a hedge and a tree with dark red leaves beside it
Zhu Lin, Totem of Life, 2025, Corten steel · (catalogue) structured as a double helix, like DNA
Close-up of a silver sculpture like a lotus seed pod, mirrored spheres in its hollows
Zeng Chenggang, Lotus Talks, 2010, stainless steel, permanent loan to NordArt
A large, shiny silver, crumpled form like a shell on the lawn, visitors behind it
Zeng Chenggang, Lotus Talks, 2010, stainless steel, permanent loan to NordArt
A small, angular stainless steel sculpture on a wide lawn with autumn leaves
In the sculpture park
A colourful faceted horse sculpture with a pink figure on the lawn under trees
Paweł Orłowski, Veni Vidi Vici I–II, 2022, painted steel sheet · “My sculptures ask who is visible and who is not.”
A path through the park with a stone sculpture of two diamonds, a red brick house in the background
Gheorghi Filin, Endless for Love, 2013, Carrara marble, granite, NordArt Symposium 2013
A long white-plastered hall with a grey roof, stones on poles and visitors on the path in front
In the sculpture park
A red sculpture of open, angular frames beside a curving path, visitors next to it
Jörg Haberland, Ti Penso Spesso, 1997, painted steel · (catalogue) “I often think of you”, after the house-of-Nicholas drawing game
Two tall upright stone slabs on a pale field, weeping willows behind
Urs-P. Twellmann, Four-piece Oak, 2026, oak
The camera approaches Jan Dostál's sculpture of curved Corten steel slats in the park
Moving image · 0:05
The camera glides close along the steel slats of the same sculpture
Moving image · 0:05
Jan Dostál, Toroid, 2025, Corten steel
Thought

The figures are worth looking at side by side. In 1999, 50 artists from six countries exhibited. In 2026 there are around 200, selected from about 3,000 applications and, according to the dpa news agency, coming from 50 countries. More than 100,000 people visit every summer. The halls add up to 22,000 square metres, plus the Wagenremise, a former carriage house, with 400 square metres, and outside lies a sculpture park of 80,000 square metres. Anyone who wants to see everything needs comfortable shoes and should not arrive in the late afternoon.

And yet NordArt is not a fair. There are no booths where galleries show their programmes side by side. The exhibition is curated as a whole every year, by Wolfgang Gramm as chief curator, by Inga Aru and Taso Gramm. Then there are country projects, this year a focus on the Baltic states under the title “Vilnius – Riga – Tallinn: Notes from the Fringe”, a Chinese special project and one on Central Asia in the Wagenremise. That may explain why you never feel you are walking past booths here. It is more like wandering through a very large exhibition with very many voices, deliberately loud in some places and surprisingly quiet in others.

02
“50 artists became around 200, one summer became 27.”
A slow camera move through the great hall, the glowing sphere above, visitors on sand and stones below
Moving image · 0:07
Wang Yuyang, Artificial Moon, 2007, in the great hall
An industrial hall with a gravel floor and stones, a shiny silver sculpture, visitors and a large light object under the roof
A bright hall with a sand floor, a huge spiral lying under the roof and bare branches reaching far into the space
Visitors stand around a large reclining form of dark metal on a plinth
Old, rough hall walls with steel girders, a huge spiral above, a single visitor below
A view from above into a hall with a sand floor, visitors among bare branches and white walls
A huge hall from above, a glowing sphere of light in the middle, bamboo and white walls, visitors spread through the space
A white wall with two curved wooden sculptures between old steel columns, a visitor next to it
A wide hall with steel columns and skylights, white exhibition walls with sculptures and pictures
A silver stacked sculpture in a shallow water basin, two visitors in front, pictures on a white wall behind
A large head in profile made of silver metal layers at the edge of a water basin, the hall behind
A standing figure on a walkway in the water basin, its reflection below, visitors in the background
A large installation of a fighter jet, a black car and screens, a visitor leaning over it
A dark hall in red light with old industrial structures, an animal sculpture above, two visitors below
A dark hall in blue and red light, a sculpture like a dinosaur on a rusty wall
The installation with fighter jet and car from a distance, a visitor in front, pictures on the wall behind
Two white-draped armchairs stand in the water, a white room with a picture and visitors behind
Tall white folded sculptures on a platform, a steel staircase in the hall beside them
White room cubes in the hall, gravel areas with rusty edges, visitors on the way
A pale wooden walkway leads over a water basin between white walls, two visitors at the end
Two white-draped armchairs in the water in front of a large, colourful painting
An empty, wide hall, silver crumpled forms under the roof, a large picture on the right
White exhibition cubes on gravel, a man walking past, a picture with red fruit in an opening
Shiny silver crumpled forms float like clouds under the hall roof above a pit
The silver stacked sculpture in the water basin in front of a white wall with pictures, visitors in front
1 / 24
In the hallsZhan Wang, Artificial Rock No A177, 2019, stainless steel · special project “Landscape of Thought”
A camera move along the wooden walkway between white exhibition cubes and water basins
Moving image · 0:14
In the halls of the Carlshütte
Portrait: the glowing sphere under the hall roof, visitors below
Moving image · 0:06
Portrait: a move along the walkway between the water basins
Moving image · 0:13
Wang Yuyang, Artificial Moon, 2007 · the walkway in the great hall
Looking up
Portrait: bare branches and a long spiral float through the hall, a tiny person below
Meng Baishen, Suspension, 2016–2017, pencil on wood (tree segments)
Portrait: a view from above onto a hall with bamboo in planters, large drawings and two visitors
In the halls of the Carlshütte
Portrait: a reclining, green-wrapped figure on a red base on the hall's sand floor, a picture behind
Egons Peršēvics, The Legend of the Karosta Mermaid, 2020, polyester resin, fibreglass
Portrait: a tall silver stacked sculpture reflected in the water basin
Ronald A. Westerhuis, Air, 2022, high-gloss polished stainless steel
Thought

Since 2000 there has also been the NordArt Symposium. Before the exhibition, artists live and work on the site for several weeks, and some of the works made there stay afterwards. That is how the park grows a little further every year. Ochirbold Ayurzana's large wire sculpture was made at the symposium in 2015 and is now one of the permanent works. I come back to it in the next story, it is one of my four favourites.

Since 2010 Hans-Julius and Johanna Ahlmann have also awarded the NordArt Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros. On top of that there are three audience awards, voted on by the visitors. Among the winners of recent years are David Černý, Michal Gabriel, Ochirbold Ayurzana, Xiang Jing and Ekaterina Zacharova. Whoever wins is invited back to the next NordArt, which I think is a lovely kind of prize: you don't just receive something, you also get to come back.

03
“Some of the art is made here, and some of it stays.”
A smaller hall
A bright hall with a white timber roof, colourful paintings on the walls, a sculpture in the middle
In one of the smaller halls
Three large, colour-intense paintings with figures in red, green and blue on white walls
In one of the smaller halls
A white pillar in front of a colourful, busy painting, more pictures behind
In one of the smaller halls
Two paintings side by side, one with a figure in red, one with a red horse and a robed figure
In one of the smaller halls
Trace

NordArt 2026 runs from June 6 to October 4 at the Kunstwerk Carlshütte in Büdelsdorf near Rendsburg, Tuesday to Sunday from 11 am to 7 pm, including public holidays. It is the 27th edition since 1999. Anyone who can't make it this year has the next chance next summer. What moved me most personally on that day is in the next story.

nordart.de ↗@nord_art ↗Weiter: Vier, die geblieben sind ↗
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Story 24: Four That Stayed