Art space, glass-walled workshop and hub
Crespo Open Space
The Crespo Open Space is a place for encounters and exchange, for art, learning and design. Artists, project participants and visitors come together here for readings, lectures, concerts and exhibitions. Funding partners and our programmes use the spaces for programme work, workshops and educational formats.
Exhibitions
Glenkeen Garden – Irish for ‘beautiful valley’ – is a landscape garden overlooking Roaringwater Bay on Ireland’s southwest coast, half cultivated, half kept wild. For over twenty years, photographer and Crespo Foundation founder Ulrike Crespo (1950–2019) worked a stretch of waterlogged farmland, turning it into the garden and leaving it as a place for contemplation and encounter. Since 2021, the Glenkeen Garden Residencies have been inviting artists to spend two to three months in the garden.
‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’ presents works by 20 artists who took part in the residency in 2024 and 2025.
With Susanne Bürner, Annette Kelm, Alexandra Leykauf and Ines Kaag, Sonya Schönberger, Mareike Dobewall and Anthea Bush, Elise Eeraerts and Roberto Aparicio Ronda, Hana Lee Erdman and Louise Dahl, Forerunner, Mbuchi – David Habets and Eva Posas, Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović, Eva Richardson McCrea and Matt Welch.
Exhibition
Friday, 16 October–Sunday, 24 January 2026
Opening
Thursday, 15 October 2026, 7 pm
Location
Open Space
Weißfrauenstraße 1–3, Frankfurt am Main
Free entry
Events
Exhibition opening ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
Performances as part of the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
In English — Curator's guided tour in the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
Art Monday — Guided tour of the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
Guided tour of the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’ (with German Sign Language interpretation)
Art Monday — Guided tour of the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
Guided tour of the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
Workshop ‘Nature Scores’ for children and teenagers as part of the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
Ensemble Modern performs Mareike Dobewall's ‘Glenkeen Nature Score Leporello’ — Concert in the exhibition ‘The Glenkeen Variations: Aftergrowth’
WORTMELDUNGEN Lesung mit Muri Darida: „King Cobra“
WORTMELDUNGEN Lange Lesenacht und Förderpreisverleihung 2026
recent exhibitions
The anniversary exhibition celebrating the SABA Educational Scholarship looks back on 20 successful years of the SABA programme. At the heart of the exhibition are the scholarship recipients and supporters, whose artworks, experiences and personal perspectives explore learning, living and working with SABA in Germany.
Exhibition
28 August 2026–20 September 2026
Miami is ‘photogenic’: against a tropical backdrop, iconic examples of the decorative yet cool Art Deco architecture and Streamline Modern style line the famous Ocean Drive. Even nature photographer Ulrike Crespo could not resist its charm.
The exhibition features around 20 selected works from her ‘Miami’ series (2012) in the atrium of the Crespo Open Space.
Exhibition
15 June 2026–17 July 2026
The exhibition presents photographic and written narratives about change and solidarity, created through a creative exchange between young people and their guardians and mentors. They were developed during workshops with photographer Günther Bauer and writer Shida Bazyar.
'In Between – Between Spaces, Between People’ is a joint project by Die BASE, an initiative of the Kinderschutzbund Frankfurt am Main / Main-Taunus e. V., the Crespo Foundation and the Leica Gallery Frankfurt.
Exhibition
18 June 2026–17 July 2026
The Atelier Goldstein is exhibiting ten works by ten artists: ‘10 Pictures – 10 Worlds’ highlights the various artistic approaches and perspectives expressed in the works.
Featuring works by Perihan Arpacilar, Julius Bockelt, Dustin Eckhardt, Hans-Jörg Georgi, Tina Herchenröther, Christa Sauer, Markus Schmitz, Selbermann, Franz von Saalfeld and Juewen Zhang.
Exhibition
20 June 2026–17 July 2026
The ‘After Nature . Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize’, initiated in collaboration with C/O Berlin, was presented in 2025 to Lisa Barnard (1967, United Kingdom) and Isadora Romero (1987, Ecuador).
The exhibitions ‘You Only Look Once’ by Lisa Barnard and ‘Notes on How to Build a Forest’ by Isadora Romero will be on view at the Crespo Open Space, opening up two artistic perspectives on the interplay between nature, technology, and society.
Exhibition
13 March 2026–31 May 2026
Since 2018, ‘Das fliegende Künstler:innenzimmer an Schulen’ (The flying artist’s room in schools) has landed as a mobile living studio in schoolyards in rural areas. Provided with a grant, artists live and work here for up to two school years as artists-in-residence. The artists-in-residence Janosch Feiertag, Dawid Liftinger, Sophia Mix, Ghaku Okazaki and Damaris Wurster are showing their work in the ‘Zwischenlandung’ exhibition. As ‘flying artists’, they reflect on the changing relationship between their own artistic positions and the rural space in which they work.
Exhibition
29.08.2025–14.09.2025
Together with C/O Berlin, the Crespo Foundation has launched the ‘After Nature . Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize’. Since 2024, the prize has been awarded annually to two international artists who use photography and image-based media to respond to the changing ecology of the present and explore new concepts of nature and art.
With Laura Huertas Millán (*1983, Colombia) and Sarker Protick (*1986, Bangladesh), the Crespo Foundation is presenting the 2024 prizewinners.
Exhibition
28.02.–25.05.2025
Glenkeen Garden is a landscape park on Roaringwater Bay in West Cork, Ireland, designed by Ulrike Crespo. Since 2021, it has been the site of an artist in residence programme, the results of which will be shown for the first time in the exhibition 'The Glenkeen Variations: ArtNature/NatureArt’.
‘The Glenkeen Variations: ArtNature/NatureArt' marked a premiere in two respects: it was the first exhibition of the first phase of the Glenkeen Garden Residencies and the first exhibition in the new Crespo Open Space.
Exhibition
12.10.24–26.01.25