Morsbroich Museum

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Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, July 2016

The Morsbroich Museum is a museum for contemporary art in Leverkusen . It was opened in January 1951 as the first museum for modern art in the Federal Republic of Germany after the end of the Second World War. The city of Leverkusen is the sponsor.

history

On September 30, 1949, the main committee of the city of Leverkusen decided unanimously to set up a museum in the baroque Morsbroich Castle . A board of trustees was formed, which defined the task of the museum: "To organize permanent exhibitions of living artists, and to give all art movements without prejudice and one-sided preference for individuals the opportunity to show their skills and to face art criticism and the public." With the establishment of a museum for contemporary art, the industrial city, which was only founded in 1930, wanted to give itself a modern face and, above all, after twelve years of National Socialist rule, to break the "rigid attitude", as JBH Hundt put it in 1951.

Curt Schweicher (1952–1958)

On August 1, 1952, the art historian Curt Schweicher was appointed director. Schweicher implemented the founding order consistently and showed 1st exhibitions of Rhenish artists and artist associations such as Rheinische Sezession Düsseldorf (1951), Xaver Fuhr - Aquarelle (1952), Anton Raederscheidt. Oil paintings, watercolors, drawings 1922–1952 (1952) or the work of FM Jansen (1955), 2. Art from other countries such as Swiss contemporary graphics (1951), The New Building in Holland (1953), Japanese in Paris ( 1954), Fantastic Basel Painting (1955), Brazil Builds (1956) or Italian Painting Today (1956) and 3rd Classical Modern Art such as 20th Century German Art from the Haubrich Collection (1953), Oskar Moll (1954 ), Fernand Léger (1955) or Robert Delaunay (1956). Schweicher's program gave the museum international recognition and created the basis for the experiments from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, during which Morsbroich cemented its reputation as a laboratory of the avant-garde.

Udo Kultermann (1959–1964)

The young art historian Udo Kultermann (1927–2013), who was appointed to Morsbroich in 1959, pursued a radical concept of crossing borders and linked the visual arts with architecture, film, applied arts and science. In 1961 he organized the »Morsbroich Art Days« with the participation of Theodor W. Adorno , Max Bense , Heinz-Klaus Metzger , the dancer Kaluza, Frei Otto , Norbert Kricke , Gerhard v. Graevenitz , Franz Mon u. v. a. and described the aim of the art days as “investigating how far the other creative disciplines, such as literature, theater, music, film and dance fit into the new, moving space of the current artistic situation.” Kultermann opened its doors Program in 1959 with an exhibition by the Swiss architect, artist and designer Max Bill and in 1960 showed the first exhibition on monochrome (n) painting . He showed u. a. Roberto Crippa (1960), Ad Reinhardt, New York ', -' Francesco Lo Savio, Rome, - Jef Verheyen, Antwerp (1961), an exhibition on mobile architecture (1961; curator: Yona Friedman), the first retrospective of the work of Lucio Fontana (1962), Kasimir Malewitsch (1962), Constructivists (1962), The Glass Chain. Visionary architects from the circle of Bruno Taut 1919–1920 (1963; curator: Oswald Mathias Ungers) or the graphic work of the Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein together with a retrospective of his films (1964). Kultermann expanded the museum into a central location for the avant-garde and pursued a progressive approach that was only represented in Germany at that time by Paul Wember in Krefeld. Similar to his predecessor Curt Schweicher, Kultermann was repeatedly attacked for his advanced program and his unconditional quality standards. In June 1964 he quit his job in Leverkusen, moved to the USA and accepted a professorship at Washington University in St. Louis, which he held until his retirement in 1994. Damaged by the backward-looking attacks on his museum director, the administration of the city of Leverkusen was forced to declare "that in Leverkusen there are opportunities for responsible museum activity without restricting intellectual freedom and without bureaucratic obstacles."

Rolf Wedewer (1965–1995)

On the basis of this declaration of honor, the art historian and journalist Rolf Wedewer (1932-2010) was won as the new museum director, who ran the house from 1965 to 1995. Wedewer opened his program with the exhibition Metamorphoses. Surrealism today (1965) and built on projects with Kultermann's brilliant time. He showed socio-political and philosophically motivated exhibitions such as Realism of Symptoms (1966), Tradition and Present (1966), Fetish Forms (1967) and Fetish Youth. Tabu Tod (1972) and presented major solo exhibitions on Bernard Schultze (1966), Francis Picabia (1967), Lee Bontecou (1968), Richard Lindner (1968) and Michael Buthe (1977). In 1969, in collaboration with the Düsseldorf gallery owner Konrad Fischer, he presented the first comprehensive, European exhibition of conceptual art on a museum level ( conception ) and the exhibition rooms - environments , for which each artist had their own room in the baroque palace. In 1973, the work of art made available to the museum for a traveling exhibition by Joseph Beuys' bathtub was destroyed during a party event. In 1992 Wedewer organized a retrospective of Wolf Vostell's work from Leverkusen , which was shown in the Museum Morsbroich and at the same time in five other museums.

Susanne Anna (1995-2000)

During her term of office (1995–2000), Susanne Anna pursued a pluralistic exhibition program and showed The Informal. From Pollock to Schumacher (1998) as well as the Museum Vitale (1996), a project about the future of museums, or Global Fun (1998), with which she looked back on the connection between design and the fine arts in the 1990s.

Gerhard Finckh (2001-2006)

Gerhard Finckh (2001–2006) succeeded in opening the museum to important German private collections. He showed freestyle in 2001 . The Boros Collection (Christian Boros), 2003 Franz von Lenbach and Art Today ( Alfred Neven DuMont , a grandson of Lenbach's), 2005 Art and Politics. Erró, Fahlström, Köpcke, Lebel (Harald Falckenberg) and YES YES YES YES. Difference and repetition in pictures in the Olbricht Collection ( Thomas Olbricht ). With exhibitions on Andy Warhol (2001) and Robert Motherwell (2004), Finckh tried to integrate historical positions into the museum's program.

Markus Heinzelmann (2006-2018)

From 2006 to 2018 Markus Heinzelmann headed the museum and, together with Fritz Emslander and Stefanie Kreuzer, followed a site-specific exhibition program. Artists were invited to grapple with the history, meaning and architecture of Morsbroich Park and the baroque palace. Ann Veronica Jannsens ( An den Frühling , 2007), Albrecht Schäfer ( Ein Tag , 2010), Rosemarie Trockel and Paloma Varga Weisz ( Maison de Plaisance , 2012), Thomas Grünfeld ( homey - works from 1981–2013 , 2013), Gert & Uwe Tobias (2014) and others developed their exhibitions precisely based on the particularities of the location. Thematic exhibitions that deal with the character of the building relate to its design as a hunting lodge ( hunters and gatherers in contemporary art , 2014), the spatial program ( Frauenzimmer , 2011) or associative fields ( Zeitgespenster. Appearances of the supernatural in contemporary art , 2011). After Heinzelmann left the house at the beginning of March 2018, the program will be continued by Fritz Emslander and Stefanie Kreuzer.

collection

Over the 65 years since it was founded in 1951, the museum has systematically built up a collection of international contemporary art. Works were usually acquired soon after their creation (for example the tiger in 1968, one of Gerhard Richter’s first museum acquisitions). The museum also received many works as gifts from artists and collectors, who were often associated with the house for many years. Today the collection has about 400 paintings and sculptures as well as almost 5000 drawings and graphic works. After individual works of Expressionism and Classical Modernism, which had been ostracized in Germany for twelve years, were consciously purchased and shown during the founding of the museum, the core collection began in the 1950s and then specifically in the early 1960s. Over the following decades, the purchasing policy focused on the current art production of young artists. With important individual works and significant groups of works are Nouveau Realisme and Fluxus (Décollagists, Burhan Dogancay , Daniel Spoerri , Wolf Vostell ), geometric-minimalist ( Ad Reinhardt ) and analytical painting ( Antonio Calderara , Raimund Girke ), Op-Art ( Victor Vasarely ) and kinetic art ( Alexander Calder , Adolf Luther ) represented. The collection focuses on monochrome painting ( Yves Klein , Piero Manzoni , Francesco Lo Savio ), the members of the ZERO group and the art of Informel ( Sam Francis , KO Götz , Norbert Kricke , Emil Schumacher , Bernard Schultze ). In later years, figurative positions were increasingly added to the collection to supplement the abstract core holdings, thus conveying a varied panorama from post-war art to the present day. The important graphic collection with drawings and prints by contemporary artists includes large collection blocks by Blinky Palermo , Gerhard Richter, Fred Sandback and Markus Oehlen . The museum has the world's most extensive collection of graphic works by Georg Baselitz . The museum does not have a permanent exhibition. Instead, the collections are presented in changing exhibitions with a thematic focus (2013/14: A handful of earth from Paradise. Magical images and objects from the Museum Morsbroich ; 2016/17: Drama Queens. The staged collection ; in the 2014 graphics floor, which reopened in 2008 : Blinky Palermo. The graphic work ; 2015: Splinters of light. Woodcuts from the collection of the Museum Morsbroich ; 2016: Sigmar Polke - Gerhard Richter. Beautiful presents ).

Sculpture garden

Jeppe Hein, Water Island, 2010

Since 2008, Morsbroicher Park, originally a baroque garden architecture that was later partially romanticized, has been featured with site-specific sculptures. In 2008 Jonathan Monk put his neon sign CLOSED on the facade of the museum, which switches on as soon as the museum is closed and humorously informs the park visitor of what he has missed. In 2010, Jeppe Hein installed his accessible, computer-controlled water feature Water Island in the driveway of the castle. In 2012 Werner Reiterer placed two balloons in the trees in front of and behind the main building: One hangs limply and announces Life isn't funny with an inscription , while the other, filled with air, pulls upwards and proclaims Life is great .

Awards

  • 2008 Exhibition of the year in North Rhine-Westphalia for Gerhard Richter. Overpainted photographs (WamS)
  • 2009 Museum Morsbroich was voted " Museum of the Year in Germany" by the International Art Critics Association (aica)
  • 2010 Justus Beer Prize for curators to Markus Heinzelmann and Doreen Mende for the exhibition Projects: Done. An exhibition by Candida Höfer with Kuehn Malvezzi in the Museum Morsbroich
  • 2015 Election of the annual program of the Museum Morsbroich as the best program of all art museums in NRW (WamS)
  • In 2014, Straßen NRW elevated the ensemble of museum and sculpture park to a “tourist destination of supraregional importance” and in February 2019 installed a sign on the A3 motorway between the Cologne-Mülheim and Leverkusen driveways.

Support association

The Museumverein Morsbroich eV has supported the work of the museum since 2001. "The purpose of the association is the promotion and financial support of the Morsbroich Museum." [Association statutes] Chairman of the board is Gottfried Zaby. About 30 volunteers run the museum shop and use their profits to finance the site-specific sculptures in the outdoor area.

literature

  • Morsbroich Castle in Leverkusen. [Rheinische Kunststätten, issue 538]. Cologne 2012
  • Museum Morsbroich (ed.): Gold leaf. Masterpieces from the graphic collection of the Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen. Leverkusen 2008, ISBN 978-3-925520-75-4
  • Museum Morsbroich (ed.): Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen. 50 years of the Morsbroich Museum. Leverkusen 2005
  • Hermann J. Mahlberg: Morsbroich Castle in Leverkusen. From the knight's seat to the avant-garde museum. Wuppertal 1995, ISBN 978-3-928766-17-3
  • Museum Morsbroich (ed.): Museum Morsbroich. Painting - plastic - objects. Volume 2: New Acquisitions 1985–1995. Leverkusen 1995, ISBN 978-3-925520-00-6
  • Museum Morsbroich (ed.): Museum Morsbroich. Painting - plastic - objects. Leverkusen 1985, ISBN 3-925520-00-7 / 3-925520-00-7

Web links

Commons : Sculpture Garden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leverkusen City Archives, Main Committee 1351.2, September 30, 1949, Item 13
  2. ^ Wilhelm Dombois, in: Exhibition catalog Rheinische Künstlergemeinschaft, Museum Morsbroich 1951, o. P.
  3. ^ Johann Baptist Hermann Hundt, in: Exhibition catalog Rheinische Sezession Düsseldorf, Museum Morsbroich 1951, o. P.
  4. ^ Udo Kultermann, in: Exhibition catalog 30 Young Germans. Architecture, sculpture, painting, graphics, Museum Morsbroich 1961, no p.
  5. ↑ See Paul Wember and the Hyperactive Museum. The Krefeld Art Museums 1947–1975, ed. by Sylvia Martin and Sabine Röder, Nuremberg 2013
  6. ^ Declaration by the city administration of Leverkusen on the termination of the museum director Dr. Kultermann, Leverkusen City Archives, 5190.00, 07.1964.
  7. ^ Spiegel Online, December 9, 2011: Gescheuerte Kunst , accessed March 19, 2018
  8. ↑ Art in the Schloßpark (videos) on leverkusen.com , accessed August 22, 2020
  9. ↑ Report on rp-online from February 5, 2019 (accessed on August 3, 2020)

Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 10 ″  N , 7 ° 2 ′ 0 ″  E