Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen Magdeburg
The Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen Magdeburg is a museum for contemporary art in Magdeburg ( Saxony-Anhalt ).
The museum is located in the middle of the old town, near the banks of the Elbe and the Magdeburg Cathedral , in a medieval building complex, the monastery of Our Lady . In the Middle Ages it was the most important German Premonstratensian monastery , today it is the most important collection and exhibition location for international contemporary art in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. A large art museum for contemporary art in a very well-preserved Romanesque building enables a cultural bridge between the past and the present, which is unique in the German museum landscape.
The special exhibitions and the structure of the collection are dedicated to international and national contemporary art across all genres. The focus of the collection has been art from 1945 to the present day, especially the genres of sculpture, media art and photography. The historical collection areas include sculptural works from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the Baroque. This collection area is closed today. From 1976 to 1990 the collecting activity focused on plastic from the GDR. This collection area is also completed today. Other areas of the collection are sculpture from modern times to the present.
Museum and collection history
1906-1945
The museum's historical sculpture collection is based in part on the sculpture collection of the former Kaiser Friedrich Museum (founded in 1906) in Magdeburg. The first Magdeburg museum director, Theodor Volbehr (1862–1931), with the support of Berlin museum expert Wilhelm von Bode , completed the art collection, which was largely made up of foundations from Magdeburg citizens. From the beginning, Theodor Volbehr wanted to bring together works from the most important art centers in Europe for the Magdeburg collection. Theodor Volbehr and his successor Walter Greischel also added modern and contemporary works of art from the German and French avant-garde to the exhibitions and collections. Until the Second World War, the then Kaiser Friedrich Museum represented European art and cultural history from all eras since antiquity. During the Second World War, large parts of the painting and plastic collection burned at their storage location.
1958-1974
The cultural use of the building complex of the monastery, which has been secularized since the 19th century and has been used differently since then, was determined by a council resolution in 1958/59. Former rooms of the monastery complex were refurbished for museum purposes as early as 1965 and initially used for city history exhibitions, later increasingly for changing art exhibitions.
1975-1989
On June 11, 1975, the Magdeburg City Council determined the use of the monastery complex as an art museum. As a result, both the plan for the structural investments and the utilization concept are confirmed by the council. At this point in time, three barrel-vaulted rooms on three floors with a floor area of approx. 800 m² and the two-storey west wing rebuilt with the simple functionality of the industrial building were completed. From 1975 the plastic collection of the 20th century was assigned to the largest room on the ground floor, the second sculptures from antiquity and the Middle Ages to the Baroque.
From 1975 the three barrel-vaulted rooms of the former monastery, one on top of the other, displayed sculptures from the 20th century as well as sculptures from antiquity and from the Middle Ages to the Baroque. In 1976, the Ministry of Culture of the GDR made the decision to found a national center for sculpture in Magdeburg in the form of the “National Collection of Small Sculptures”. Later the focus was expanded to national sculpture. The choice of location was based on the high-quality stock of European sculptures from all epochs of art history in Magdeburg's art collections. An annual purchase budget from the Magdeburg museums and additional funds from the Ministry of Culture enabled the collection to expand rapidly from 1976 to 1989.
The far-reaching decision of the ministry finally led to the fact that no other collection on the territory of the GDR had a nearly extensive and significant inventory of sculptures from the GDR by 1989. Conferences under the title “Plastic Colloquia”, held almost annually between 1976 and 1986, at which sculptors and art scholars from all over the country came together to exchange ideas and experiences, led to a rapidly growing acceptance of the young collection. In the following fifteen years the collection was intensively expanded. By 1989 the collection grew to over 1200 sculptures and approx. 600 sculptural drawings, including many works from the first half of the 20th century. In addition to the annual purchase budget, additional funds from the Ministry of Culture and the Kulturfonds Foundation were available from 1976 to 1989 for building up the collection . To mark the 40th anniversary of the GDR, around 50 large sculptures were placed in the outdoor area of the museum in autumn 1989, thus establishing the sculpture park, which still surrounds the building today and is occasionally supplemented with new sculptures. Before the German reunification in 1989, the “National Collection of Small Sculptures” went to the city of Magdeburg.
1990
After 1990, the expansion of the collection slowed down in favor of an exhibition program for international art. In the course of the 1990s, a new concept for the collection activity was developed, in which a content reorientation, a new financing model for the acquisition of works of art and the establishment of contacts with private collectors had to be taken into account. If there were sufficient funds available in the almost fifteen years of state-supported collecting activities, the possibilities now remained very limited. The exhibition system, on the other hand, could quickly be adapted to international events, for example with special exhibitions such as “Art Region South of France 1980-1990” (1991), “Ways. Art from clay ”(1993),“ Surveying the spaces. Art from Clay "(1997) and" Gardens of Flora "(1999) as part of the Federal Garden Show .
2002-2009
In 2004, with the help of various funding agencies, the state of Saxony-Anhalt and private donations, the collection had grown to such an extent that the permanent exhibition in the upper barrel vault could be redesigned. It presents the results of collecting activities over the past ten years and is opening up to European art developments for the first time in over 60 years.
In place of a closed body of work since the 1960s, there was also the presentation of new trends and positions in international art. Process-related art approaches, photography, new media, film and video works have now also been taken into account . International art has been exhibited since the 1960s, such as works by Enrico Castellani , Giovanni Anselmo , Gilberto Zorio , Jenny Holzer and Leiko Ikemura, which are also shown in the permanent exhibition.
Exhibitions during this time were:
- 2003 La Poetica dell 'Arte Povera
- 2004 Paris des photographes
- 2005 Fluxus and friends . Collection Maria and Walter Schnepel
- 2005 Fascination with art . Art museums in Saxony-Anhalt
- 2007 Second View. American photography from the Lower Saxony Sparkassenstiftung Collection
- 2006 John Smith
2009 until today
The museum has continued to develop over the past ten years. From 2009 to 2012 the exhibition area was expanded to around 2000 m². In addition to opening up further rooms to the public, an exhibition floor was gained. Important exhibitions and a. with Bjørn Melhus , Jannis Kounellis , Judith Joy Ross , Christiane Möbus , Kōji Kamoji , Matthias Hoch , Maix Mayer , Olaf Wegewitz u. a. were presented alongside thematic exhibitions.
Buildings and exhibition areas
The closed building complex of basilica , cloister , adjoining convent buildings , former pedagogy and modern exhibition wing, built in the 11th to 13th as well as in the 19th and 20th centuries, is one of the most important architectural monuments in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The renovation and expansion of the convent building to approx. 2,500 m² of exhibition space in accordance with the monument and aesthetically demanding requirements enable the interplay of historical substance and international art of the present. The building complex of the monastery complex includes the permanent exhibition area and the exhibition rooms for special exhibitions as well as the Romanesque St. Mary's Church, the cloister with fountain house (called " tonsure "), the school building from the 19th century, which is now used as an administrative wing and the new west building with a café and museum shop.
The permanent exhibition area comprises three barrel vaults: the so-called upper bin (former summer refectory of the monastery), middle bin (former monastery kitchen) and lower bin, which permanently present the collection. A selection from the contemporary art collection has been on display in the Upper Tonne since 2004. Works by Ruth Francken, Jannis Kounellis, Anthony Caro, Olaf Wegewitz, Heinz Breloh, Auke de Vries, Enrico Castellani, John Smith, Thomas Virnich and Maurizio Nannucci can be seen permanently. In the middle bin there is the historical sculpture between the Middle Ages and the Baroque. The works of Auguste Rodin, Aristide Maillol, Ernst Barlach and Wilhelm Lehmbruck in the lower bin bring sculpture from antiquity and modernity into dialogue.
The extensive area around the monastery has been designed as a sculpture park since 1989 , which extends far into Magdeburg's old town and shows a selection of the collection with works since 1945. The upper cloister and the penitentiary , the cabinets, the hall and the media lounge will be used for special exhibitions. Occasionally the church and the chapel, which adjoins the northern transept of the basilica, are also included in exhibition projects. The Marienkirche has also been used as the Georg Philipp Telemann concert hall by the Magdeburg Society House since 1977.
Exhibitions
Changing special exhibitions show contemporary art in solo or group exhibitions. The focus here is on artistic positions which, in some cases outside of the popular canon, set important content. Group exhibitions such as “Heute.Malerei” (2012), “Everyday Ideologies” (2008 and 2010), “Color” (2007), “La Poetica dell'Arte Povera” (2003) or “Daily Memories” (2014) were devoted to important ones artistic tendencies, methods, genres or themes. Solo exhibitions present works by both internationally established and young, up-and-coming artists whose positions stand out from the conventional canon.
Important solo exhibitions to date have included the retrospective of Ruth Francken (2006), Rashid Johnson (2008), Judith Joy Ross (2012), Jannis Kounellis (2012), Kōji Kamoji (2013), and Max Uhlig (2014). The media lounge on the top floor, inaugurated in 2012, regularly presents highlights from the media collection or current contemporary media art.
literature
- Tobias von Elsner: Everything burned? The lost picture gallery of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Magdeburg. Collection losses due to the effects of war and consequential damage . Cuno, Calbe 1995. (Magdeburger Museumhefte; 5).
- Uwe Gellner: Aspects of a Late Genesis - The Art Museum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen . In: Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen Magdeburg , Magdeburg 1995, pp. 277–288.
- Annegret Laabs: The Art Museum Monastery Our Dear Women Magdeburg. A museum of the changing present , in: Exhibition catalog Fascination Art. Art museums in Saxony-Anhalt , ed. by Annegret Laabs and Uwe Gellner, Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Calbe: Cuno, 2005, pp. 98–123.
- Annegret Laabs, Andreas Hornemann: Art Museum Magdeburg Monastery Our Dear Women, DKV art guide No. 438, 6th, revised. Edition, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-02133-4
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 7 ′ 40 ″ N , 11 ° 38 ′ 13.3 ″ E