Alexander von Vegesack

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Alexander von Vegesack (born March 5, 1945 in Thuringia ) is a German art collector. From 1989 to 2010 he was curator and museum director of the Vitra Design Museum .

Life

Alexander von Vegesack comes from a Westphalian noble family and is the son of the orchard owner Karl-Dieter von Vegesack (* 1920) and his first wife Luise Freiin von Lüttwitz (1922–2005). The parents divorced in Koblenz in 1950 . At 15, he founded one in 1960 in Dusseldorf student patrol services . More than 80 students worked for his employment agency with services such as window cleaning, shopping and small removals. Because of an intervention by the Federal Employment Agency , he had to cease operations. In 1961 Vegesack lived in Düsseldorf-Stockum .

In 1966 Vegesack opened a gallery in Hamburg for unusual, already worn items of clothing. He then tried his hand at a real estate agent, but his attempt to open a dormitory for single mothers was unsuccessful. In 1970 he founded the Fucktory artists' club in an empty factory with friends and pets in the Altona district . With international artist groups he organized and staged provocative plays and so-called black masses, which were recognized by the feature section . From 1973 he was responsible for the cultural revitalization of the inner city on behalf of the city ​​of Hamburg . Until 1975 he was responsible for creating living studios in old factories and warehouses in the Hanseatic city .

In 1977 he moved to south-west France and founded an equestrian tourism company. He had brought together early Thonet seating furniture from many European countries, especially Andalusia , and restored his collection of bentwood furniture . He developed into a bentwood furniture specialist, so that he was involved in a New York 150-year exhibition for the furniture designer and manufacturer Michael Thonet . From 1982 to 1986 he set up a Thonet department in the museum in Boppard am Rhein, the first public Thonet museum.

Vitra Design Museum

In the mid-1980s he began working with Rolf Fehlbaum , the managing owner of vitra . Fehlbaum bought a large part of his Thonet furniture collection from him. Since the manufacturer wanted to make his collection accessible to the public, he and Alexander von Vegesack agreed on a separate building. It should not be located on the Vitra production site and should also provide space for other exhibitions. Since the Vitra Design Museum was completed in 1989, he has been the head of a high-quality collection and museum director in one of the most famous buildings by the world-renowned architect Frank O. Gehry . With one or two exhibitions a year about designers, architects, objects and styles, which Vegesack conceived as traveling exhibitions, he made a significant contribution to the international recognition of high-quality design. At the end of 2010, he handed over the management and operational management of the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein to a new dual leadership with Mateo Kries (content) and Marc Zehntner (management) and became chairman of the Vitra Design Foundation .

Domaine de Boisbuchet

In 1986 Vegesack sold part of its Thonet collection to Rolf Fehlbaum . With the proceeds from the sale, he was able to acquire the Domaine de Boisbuchet estate with 50 hectares in south-west France (near Lessac , Poitou-Charentes region ) in order to be able to use it for workshops for artists, designers, architects and interested students during the summer months. Previous lecturers have included Estudio Campana , Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec , Tom Dixon , Fabio Novembre and Ingo Maurer , who support students in their work in the pavilions of the architects Simón Vélez , Jörg Schlaich and Shigeru Ban . Vegesack founded the non-profit organization CIRECA ( Center International de Recherche et d'Education Culturelle et Agricole ) to organize cultural activities . For Boisbuchet, Vegesack established contacts with many institutions that provide materials or guides for the workshops, such as the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, the École nationale supérieure d'art de Limoges-Aubusson or the American Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG).

Awards

Publications (selection)

  • 1991: Czech Cubism - Architecture and Design 1910-1925. Exhibition catalog, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 1991, ISBN 978-3980253963 .
    English edition: Czech Cubism - Architecture, Furniture, Decorative Arts, 1910-1925. Princeton Architectural Press, 1992, ISBN 1-878271-66-0 .
  • 1994: Thonet - pioneer of industrial design. Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 1994, ISBN 3-9804070-0-4 .
  • with Lucy Bullivant, Jutta Oldiges: kid size. Furniture and objects for children. The Material World of Childhood. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 1997, ISBN 88-8118-255-6 .
  • 1996: with Peter Dunas, Mathias Schwartz-Clauss: 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection. Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 1996, ISBN 3-9804070-3-9 . (German)
  • 1998: Mies van der Rohe. Furniture and buildings in Stuttgart, Barcelona, ​​Brno. Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 1998, ISBN 3-931936-16-3 .
  • 2000: with Mathias Remmele (Ed.): Verner Panton - Das Gesamtwerk. Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 2000, with CD-ROM, ISBN 978-3-931936-22-8 .
  • 2001: with Bruce Altshuler, Anna C. Chave, Ingrid Schaffner, Thorsten Romanus (Illustrator), Thomas Dix (Photographer): Isamu Noguchi - Sculptural Design. Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 2001, ISBN 978-3931936334 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Noble Death anouncements 2005. ( Memento of 26 June 2008 at the Internet Archive ) In: worldroots.com , accessed on 16 November of 2010.
  2. ^ A b Genealogical Handbook of the Adels , Adelige Häuser B Volume V, page 435, Volume 26 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1961.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Frank Nicolaus: Working on the design of one's own life. ( Memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: art - Das Kunstmagazin , 2001, No. 7, pp. 64–71.
  4. ↑ Jochen Fillisch: Why does someone like that live in Weil? In: Badische Zeitung , October 13, 2010.
  5. ↑ Michael Hausenblas: Classics in Conversation - Alexander von Vegesack. ( Memento of 8 November 2007 at the Internet Archive ) In: proholz.at from: cutting ., No. 9, 2003, pp 6 et seq.
  6. ↑ nn: Weiler conversations with Alexander von Vegesack. In: Badische Zeitung , Lokales, Weil am Rhein , October 1, 2010.
  7. ↑ bz: Double leadership for the Vitra Design Museum in Weil. In: Badische Zeitung , Nachrichten, Kultur , November 4, 2010.
  8. ^ Domaine de Boisbuchet. ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: boisbuchet.org, (German), accessed on November 16, 2010
  9. ^ Jill Singer: Q + A: Alexander Von Vegesack. ( Memento of July 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: ID , April 9, 2009, interview (English).
  10. ↑ Boisbuchet Workshops press release 2010. ( Memento from January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (German; PDF file, 151 kB)
  11. ↑ Weiler conversations with Alexander von Vegesack. In: City of Weil am Rhein, October 11, 2010.
  12. ^ Thomas Mink: A pioneer of a special stature - Vitra Design Museum as part of life's work: Federal Cross of Merit for Alexander von Vegesack. In: Badische Zeitung , July 22, 2005, beginning of the article.
personal data
SURNAME Vegesack, Alexander von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Thuringia