Heiner Friedrich

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Heiner Friedrich (born April 14, 1938 in Stettin ) is a German art dealer , gallery owner and museum founder. He was the initiator of the Dia Art Foundation .

Career

Heiner Friedrich was born as the son of the metal goods manufacturer Harald Friedrich. He grew up first in Berlin , then in the tranquility of Kirchberg in Upper Bavaria . At first he was interested in literature. Through his first wife, Six Friedrich , he met Franz Dahlem , who was of the same age and who inspired him for contemporary art. On July 23, 1963, he opened the Friedrich & Dahlem gallery with Dahlem and his wife Six in Munich . In exhibitions he shows the minimal , land art and conceptual artists Carl Andre , Joseph Beuys, who were unknown at the time , Walter De Maria , Dan Flavin . Michael Heizer , Donald Judd , Sigmar Polke , Gerhard Richter , Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol .

Munich

In their rooms at Maximilianstrasse 15, then also in a newly established branch in Cologne, Heiner Friedrich and Franz Dahlem present an astonished audience - for the first time in Germany - an Earth Room , a gallery space that Walter De Maria had filled with 50 m³ of earth ( 1968). For the first time at Friedrich & Dahlem in 1964 the scriptural “scribble drawings” Twombly and the light art created from commercial neon tubes by Dan Flavin (1968) could be seen. In July 1964 there was an exhibition with fourteen pictures by Gerhard Richter. The scrap sculptures by John Chamberlain , made from bent, painted car sheet metal and now in the holdings of many museums, were shown for the first time in Germany by the two gallery owners. The floor sculptures by Carl Andre , made of rusty, square or rectangular steel plates in a row to form squares or rows, are now in the holdings of the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main. "Baselitz, Polke and Palermo, at that time still unknown and practically not for sale, were also firmly part of the gallery program [...]" The Frankfurt MMK also acquired one of the most important groups of works in Palermo from the Ströher collection.

In 1966 Dahlem left the joint gallery and advised the Darmstadt art collector Karl Ströher , but the two friends continue to work closely together. The gallery owners were able to interest Ströher in the work of Joseph Beuys and established the first contact between Ströher and Beuys. Due to Dahlem's persistence and Friedrich's bravado, almost all of the works shown in the Beuys exhibition in the Museum Mönchengladbach in 1967 were acquired for the Ströher collection or given by Beuys as an encore, resulting in the Darmstadt Beuys block (today: Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt ). In 1969 they convinced Franz Meyer to exhibit the Beuys block under the title Works from the Ströher Collection at the Kunstmuseum Basel .

Dahlem and Friedrich were the initiators of another major acquisition by Ströher: In the early 1960s, the New York real estate agent Leon Kraushaar from Lawrence, Long Island , acquired an extensive pop collection. After his death in September 1967, Kraushaar's widow decided to offer the collection of over 160 objects, which had increased significantly in value, for sale. The two Munich gallery owners flew to New York with Ströher and made the acquisition perfect. The collection comprised six pictures by Roy Lichtenstein , 21 objects by Claes Oldenburg , six pictures and objects by Andy Warhol , 15 pictures by James Rosenquist , 7 pictures by Tom Wesselmann and other works by other American artists, including Jasper Johns and Walter De Maria . This part of the Ströher collection is now in the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt.

In 1969 Friedrich was able to place an exhibition by his resident artist Franz Erhard Walther under the title Diary in the Museum of Modern Art , New York .

A proposal by Friedrich to install a vertical kilometer of earth by Walter De Maria as part of the art program for the 1972 Olympic Games was rejected by the Munich city administration. The fruitless arguments with the authorities and the exhaustion that resulted from the monthly repetitive exhibition operations made Friedrich dissolve all ties and obligations to Munich. Shortly after the failure of the De Maria installation, he flew to New York and settled there. The project of the vertical earth kilometer was only realized at Documenta 6 in 1977 .

new York

In the same year he reopened the Heiner Friedrich gallery in New York City at 141 Wooster Street in SoHo and remained loyal to his artists. The first exhibition was again dedicated to Walther De Maria and the Earth Room , which has been a permanent installation under the title The New York Earth Room since 1977. He wanted "[...] to counter the high-speed exhibition business in which one show chased the next [...] with something lasting."

In 1974 Friedrich founded the Dia Art Foundation in New York with the art historian Helen Winkler and his later wife Philippa de Menil (* 1947 in Houston ) , a project that permanently secured Friedrich's conception, supported the artists in his circle as a patron, collected works and exhibited should organize. Philippa de Menil was the daughter and youngest child of the Texan art collector couple John and Dominique de Ménil , who with the shares of the Schlumberger Ltd. oil company . Had become billionaires. Philippa was the aunt of the late artist Dash Snow .

With Friedrich's ideas and connections and the never-ending money from the De Menils, the institution quickly developed into a major New York art business. In addition to building up the collection and the exhibitions, funding was given above all to projects "which, due to their character or size", could not be realized from a commercial point of view.

A 75 square kilometer site near Quemado in New Mexico was purchased for Walter De Maria to build his installation Lightning Field with 400 stainless steel rods. The minimalist musician and composer La Monte Young was able to set up his sound architecture Dream House in a building in New York . Since 1977, Dia Art has financed its largest projects by Donald Judd's Museum of the Pecos , for which 140 acres of pasture land were purchased in addition to several buildings in Marfa, Texas, and James Turrell's Land Art and Light Project Roden Crater in Flagstaff , Arizona , where a 4.8 km² area with a crater was acquired.

In 1984 Dia Art got into financial distress due to the fall in the price of Schlumberger shares, houses and pictures from the collection were sold, and support and projects were discontinued. The artists felt they had been betrayed, and Judd threatened to file a lawsuit. Heiner and Philippa Friedrich lost their position in the management.

DASMAXIMUM art present

In 2011, Friedrich founded DASMAXIMUM KunstGegenwart, a public art museum on an inner-city site in Traunreut , Bavaria , and converted the previously industrially used production halls of over 4000 m² into a daylight museum. In the former factory halls of today's company Alzmetall Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik und Gießerei Friedrich GmbH & Co. KG, the company founder Harald Friedrich manufactured the small car Spatz . Heiner Friedrich is showing four German and four American artists who to this day have decisively shaped such diverse currents as Pop Art , Minimalism , Conceptual Art , Land Art and new expressive figuration. Works by Georg Baselitz , John Chamberlain , Dan Flavin , Imi Knoebel , Walter de Maria , Uwe Lausen , Andy Warhol and the German painter Maria Zerres will be shown . You are among the closest companions of Heiner Friedrich, who has made permanent presentations of art his leitmotif since he started out as a gallery owner in Munich, Cologne and New York.

The artists are represented with large-format work series, with works by American artists setting a special focus. There are more than 20 pictures by Andy Warhol, separate halls for the sculptures by John Chamberlain and Walter de Maria as well as an old schoolhouse in which the light installation of all “European Couples” by Dan Flavin has been the connection between American and German art 1960s before eyes. Friedrich's colleague Franz Dahlem works in an advisory capacity.

Awards

Editions

  • Georg Baselitz: One week . Portfolio with seven drypoint etchings. Edition of 52 copies, 1972.

literature

  • Six Friedrich, Franz Dahlem (arrangement): Collection 1968 Karl Ströher . Franz Dahlem, Gallery Association Munich, Neue Pinakothek , House of Art , West Wing, Munich 1968
  • Corinna Thierolf for the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Ed.): I don't want to say anything about myself. It's about the art. Heiner Friedrich in conversation with Corinna Thierolf. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3829608442
  • Corinna Thierolf for the Bavarian State Painting Collections (Ed.): It is the Art that Speaks. Heiner Friedrich in conversation with Corinna Thierolf . Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-8296-0861-9 . ( Online )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Café Germany. In conversation with SIX FRIEDRICH. Retrieved March 6, 2020 .
  2. ^ Café Germany. In conversation with FRANZ DAHLEM. Retrieved March 6, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Michael Kimmelman: The Dia Generation. In: The New York Times Magazine . April 6, 2003.
  4. ↑ Lisa Zeitz: Man with Mission and Vision, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of April 17, 2008. [1]
  5. ↑ Twombly's series was titled The Artist in the Northern Climate .
  6. ^ The title of Flavin's light installation: Two Primary Series and one Secondary (1968).
  7. ^ Dietmar Elger : Gerhard Richter, painter. DuMont, Cologne 2002, p. 83.
  8. ↑ Overview of works ::: Collection Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Brita Sachs: He brought minimalism to Munich. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. July 31, 2011.
  10. ^ Peter Iden , Rolf Lauter : Pictures for Frankfurt. Inventory catalog of the Museum of Modern Art. Munich 1985, p. 112 f, 185 f. ISBN 978-3-7913-0702-2
  11. ^ Café Germany. In conversation with KASPER KÖNIG. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  12. ^ Dieter Koepplin : For exhibiting, collecting and conveying the work of Joseph Beuys. In: Joseph Beuys in Basel. Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basel Public Art Collection and the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation , Basel 2003, ISBN 3-7204-0150-2 , p. 6.
  13. ^ Rolf Lauter (Ed.): The Museum of Modern Art and the Ströher Collection. On the history of a private collection, Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt am Main, 1994. ISBN 978-3-7973-0585-5
  14. ^ Peter Iden , Rolf Lauter : Pictures for Frankfurt. Inventory catalog of the Museum of Modern Art. Munich 1985, ISBN 978-3-7913-0702-2
  15. ^ Jean Christophe Ammann, Christmut Präger: Museum of Modern Art and Ströher Collection. In: Writings on the collection of the Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt am Main. 1991, p. 37, p. 81.
  16. ↑ Laura Weissmüller: No word on art. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. July 8, 2011.
  17. ↑ ART: Time of Blindness . In: Der Spiegel. 7/1985, November 18, 1985.
  18. ↑ The couple married in 1978. Friedrich is said to have met Philippa at a party in Los Angeles in the late 1960s
  19. ↑ Grace Glueck: To Get His Museum, Opening in '92. In: The New York Times. 3rd October 1989.
  20. ↑ ART: Time of Blindness . In: Der Spiegel. 7/1985, November 18, 1985.
  21. ↑ Laura Weissmüller: No word on art. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. July 8, 2011.
  22. ↑ Brita Sachs: He brought minimalism to Munich. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. July 31, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Friedrich, Heiner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art dealer, art collector and curator
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin