Kraftwerk’s Arty Return

Influential German electro band Kraftwerk played its first gigs in its home city of Dusseldorf in 20 years by selling out an eight-show run at the K-20 art museum Jan. 11-20.

Each show focused on a different Kraftwerk album, a format that last year worked well when the act played a similar series of shows at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Next month Kraftwerk takes the album performances to London’s Tate Modern Feb. 6-14.

The Dusseldorf shows take place at the same time as “Kraftwerk Robots,” an exhibition of photographs of the band taken by Peter Boettcher. It took place at the NRW Forum, Dusseldorf’s major cultural museum.

Although Ralf Huetter is the only member from the original lineup, Kraftwerk’s popularity has endured.

The 20,000 or so tickets for the three art gallery runs were gone in a flash, prompting a representative for the Tate Modern to tell Bloomberg that its website was “overwhelmed” by the onsale.