20 JahrePressetext_Eng - Museum für Moderne Kunst

MMK 1991-2011: 20 Years of the
Contemporary
19 June – 9 October 2011
Exhibition opening: 19 June 2011
“In June 1991, exactly twenty years ago, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst opened its doors,
thus closing a large gap – the gap waiting for a museum featuring in Frankfurt. Today it is among
the world’s outstanding museums of contemporary art”, says Mayor Petra Roth of Frankfurt.
In its young history, the MMK has assembled a unique collection meanwhile encompassing more
than 4,500 artworks. It thus holds a key position: as a museum for the art of the 1960s to the
present, in Frankfurt, Germany and internationally.
Owing to its size and diversity, the presentation of this collection in its entirety has not been
possible to date. Already at the time of its opening, the holdings comprised more works than could
be displayed on the floor space offered by the museum building, a Hans Hollein design.
“In the anniversary year 2011, however, we are going to make the hitherto impossible possible: the
MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst will present its collection in an unprecedented overview
exhibition and allow it to shine in full glory – at the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst with the
adjacent MMK Zollamt, and on four thousand square metres in a building slated for demolition in
the MainTor-Areal on the bank of the river Main in Frankfurt”, Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, director of
the MMK, has now announced.
Thanks to its partnership with the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale,
Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, Sparkassen-Kulturfonds des Deutschen Sparkassen- und
Giroverbandes) and the Frankfurt real estate investor DIC (owner of the riverside area in question),
as well as generous support from the Frankfurt Department of Culture and the entrepreneur Stefan
Quandt, the MMK has been offered the opportunity to occupy the large building in the heart of the
city temporarily with the exhibition “MMK 1991–2011: 20 Years of the Contemporary”. The museum
will thus have a second mainstay for the presentation of its collection in Frankfurt until 9 October.
Shortly before the demolition measures are launched for the DIC “MainTor-Areal” project on the
former Degussa grounds, the MMK will position itself right in the midst of the Frankfurt “Museum
Bank” (Untermainkai 3). “With this exhibition, the MainTor-Areal will become a pilgrimage
destination for modern art for four months”, says Roth. The period of transition between the site’s
past and its future as a highly attractive new urban district will form a unique setting for the
presentation of art.
For the first time in its history, the multiplication of the MMK’s exhibition space will allow it to
spread out works by nearly all of the artists represented in the collection in a unique presentation.
In addition to the staging of major works of outstanding significance by Nam June Paik, Christian
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Boltanski, Ai Weiwei/ Serge Spitzer or Franz Erhard Walther in new constellations and spaces at the
MainTor-Areal, works from the MMK holdings never before shown to the public, for example by
Michel Majerus, Ceal Floyer or Holger Bunk, will be introduced. The spatial concept for the
exhibition building in the MainTor-Areal will be developed in cooperation with Frankfurt architect
Prof. Christoph Mäckler – who incidentally is also responsible for one of the new high-rise sites in
the so-called MainTor Panorama. The artist Tobias Rehberger will install his work Montevideo,
Milan, New York, Moscow, Dubai, Singapore, São Paulo and Tokyo as a temporary museum café,
and with the design of the 600-square-metre roof terrace overlooking the Main and the
development of a visual routing system for the exhibition he will moreover introduce striking visual
accents in the interior and exterior areas of the presentation.
At the building constructed for the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst after a design by Hans Hollein
in Domstrasse in 1991, a concurrent six-month presentation will feature top works from the MMK
such as Roy Lichtenstein’s Yellow and Green Brushstrokes, Andy Warhol’s Green Disaster, Bruce
Nauman’s Perfect Balance, Bill Viola’s The Stopping Mind, Gerhard Richter’s Fußgänger
(Pedestrians) and Douglas Gordon’s Play Dead; Real Time. The post-modern building has lost
nothing of its fascination; on the contrary, it has meanwhile taken on model character.
In the past two decades, many of the pieces on display here have been developed for specific
spaces within the building by artists represented in the collection. No other museum in the world
possesses such a large number of site-specific works.
On the History of the MMK Collection
In 1981, the city of Frankfurt initiated the process of founding a museum of modern art with its
highly acclaimed purchase of works from the former collection of entrepreneur and collector Karl
Ströher of Darmstadt. Already at that time, the foundation was laid for the defining MMK collection
principle: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Gerhard
Richter and Blinky Palermo are not merely represented with single works, but – in every case –
entered the MMK holdings with a substantial number of major works and workgroups. Under the
direction of Prof. Peter Iden, this core collection was already enhanced before the museum’s
opening, for example by Joseph Beuys’s last major work, Blitzschlag mit Lichtschein auf Hirsch
(Lightning with Stag in Its Glare).
Beginning in 1989, MMK director Prof. Dr. Jean-Christophe Ammann consistently developed these
foundations further with workgroups emerging within the context of close cooperation between
the museum and the artists. Bill Viola, James Turrell, Mario Merz, Lothar Baumgarten and On
Kawara all executed their well-known works and workgroups specifically for this setting.
Outstanding collections of works by Alighiero Boetti and Jeff Wall were established and later
expanded within the framework of major retrospectives at the MMK. Hanne Darboven and Bernd
and Hilla Becher likewise entered the collection with workgroups large enough to fill entire rooms.
Substantial workgroups by Frankfurt artists meanwhile known and appreciated all over the world –
for example Peter Roehr, Charlotte Posenenske and Thomas Bayrle – were likewise purchased and
exhibited in the early years of the MMK. In general, Ammann sought to focus his collecting
activities strongly on young artists, the majority of whom had received their training at the art
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academy Städelschule, among them Heiner Blum, Udo Koch, Manfred Stumpf or Jochem
Hendricks. They bear a relationship to a generation of internationally acclaimed artists such as
Bruce Nauman, Robert Gober, Rosemarie Trockel, Marlene Dumas, Peter Fischli and David Weiss,
and Ilja Kabakov. A further special characteristic of the collection thus also became apparent: it
directs equal attention to all artistic forms of expression. Photography, film and video are collected
to the same degree as the traditional media of painting, prints and sculpture.
With funds from the Dieter and Olga Bock foundation, 431 works were purchased during Ammann’s
period in office, and placed on permanent loan to the MMK. They include ten portfolios each
containing several graphic works. In the context of the withdrawal in 2005, 395 works were
returned to the Dieter and Olga Bock foundation. That number corresponded to less than eight
percent of the MMK collection’s holdings at present. Fourteen of the most important works for the
collection were repurchased for the MMK by the city at fifty-seven percent of the insurance value
of 2003. A workgroup by Thomas Bayrle remained in the MMK on permanent loan.
To this day, the purchase of the Ricke Collection in 2006 represents the largest new acquisition
since that of the Ströher Collection. Udo Kittelmann, MMK director from 2002 to 2008, thus
succeeded in substantially expanding the holdings and completing existing workgroups by Richard
Artschwager, Donald Judd and David Reed. The MMK’s focus on American artists was rounded out
with exceptional artistic strategies such as those of Lee Lozano, Gary Kuehn, Cady Noland and
Steven Parrino. The group of room-specific works was further contemporized with examples by
Thomas Demand, Gregor Schneider, Tino Sehgal and Hans-Peter Feldmann.
The commissions granted under the directorship of Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer – head of the MMK
since 2009 – are entirely in keeping with the museum’s unique image and collection strategy.
Artistic approaches such as those of Cerith Wyn Evans, Sarah Morris, Florian Hecker, Juergen Teller
and M/M (Paris) are outstanding examples of the past two years. For the anniversary year, room
installations by Isa Genzken and Wolfgang Tillmans are planned.
Katharina Fritsch’s Tischgesellschaft (Company at Table), an MMK trademark, belonged to the
collection of the Dresdner Bank. In 2010, within the context of the Dresdner Bank’s takeover by the
Commerzbank, the work was obtained for the MMK from the latter in the form of a permanent loan.
Works by Tobias Rehberger, Charlotte Posenenske, Dan Flavin and Alighiero Boetti constitute
further enhancements of existing workgroups which made their way into the collection as
permanent loans by the same means.
The MMK has no purchasing budget, and the collection’s successful establishment over the past
twenty years would accordingly not have been possible without major support in the form of
donations and gifts. The MMK would not be in a position to fulfil its mission to serve as a public
museum institution without the great commitment of the citizens of Frankfurt. The cooperation
with private patrons and business will continue to be of tremendous significance in the future as
well.
However great the dedication of the directors and curators of the past twenty years, and however
generous the support from the citizens and business enterprises of Frankfurt, a remarkable
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indication of the confidence artists place in our museum is the fact that more than one quarter of
our holdings entered the collection as their donations. To cite just one example, more than half of
the room installations in the last exhibition “Not in Fashion: Fashion and Photography of the
Nineties” were donated to the MMK collection.
The Peter Roehr Archive was donated to the MMK by Paul Maenz early this year.
The chief patrons of the anniversary exhibition are the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (DekaBank
Deutsche Girozentrale, Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, Sparkassen-Kulturfonds des
Deutschen Sparkassen- und Giroverbandes) and the DIC – Deutsche Immobilien Chancen. Further
patrons are the Frankfurt Department of Culture and the entrepreneur Stefan Quandt.
The exhibition will moreover be realized with kind support from Dr. Sesselmann und Kollegen BES
AG and B+G Ingenieure Bollinger und Grohmann. Our mobility partner will be the Deutsche Bahn.
Press contact:
Christina Henneke
Telephone +49 69 212 377 61
Daniela Denninger, Karen Knoll
Telephone +49 69 212 358 44
Fax +49 69 21237882
presse.mmk@stadt-frankfurt.de
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