Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2012)

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , also known as The Guggenheim for short , is a modern art museum in New York City founded in 1939 . It is located on Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, between Central Park and the East River . The museum is operated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and is the oldest and most famous of the Guggenheim museums. The museum building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and opened in 1959. The focus of the collection shown is on abstract art , but it also contains works from Impressionism , Post-Impressionism , Expressionism and Surrealism .

history

In 1929 and 1930, Solomon R. Guggenheim , who was a member of the Guggenheim industrial family , began building a collection of avant-garde modern art. The young German artist Hilla von Rebay advised him on the purchase , and she only brought him into contact with this art after he had initially collected works by old masters . In the early 1930s, Solomon R. Guggenheim exhibited the growing collection in his apartment in New York's Savoy-Plaza Hotel and presented new acquisitions to the public in small exhibitions. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-Objective Paintings , which went on an exhibition tour to Charleston , Philadelphia and Baltimore , was created under the Rebays organization .

In 1937 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was founded, which received permission from New York State to operate one or more museums. Solomon R. Guggenheim was elected the Society's first President and Hilla von Rebay was elected curator . In 1939 the company established a small Museum of Non-Objective Painting on 24th East Street in an old car dealership that Lewis Muschenheim had redesigned to display the Solomon R. Guggenheim collection. The opening took place on July 1st with the Art of Tomorrow exhibition. The first director of the museum was Hilla von Rebay. The walls of the museum were decorated with velor , classical recordings were played and incense candles were burned. Works of abstract art from Europe and North America were shown.

In 1943, Solomon R. Guggenheim and Hilla von Rebay commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new museum building to be built between 88th and 89th Street on Fifth Avenue . As a result, Wright made over 700 sketches. The construction was only realized between 1956 and 1959, which was due to the inflation as a result of the Second World War and the blockade by the building authorities. In 1952, Rebay gave up the post of director after falling out of favor with the museum's curators after Guggenheim's death in late 1949. She had no contact with the museum until her death. Her successor as director was James Johnson Sweeney . The Museum of Non-Objective Painting was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in memory of the founder . In addition, under Sweeney's direction, the focus has been moved away from abstract painting. For example, he acquired sculptures that did not belong to this art movement. During the planning and construction period, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting moved several times and was housed in townhouses at 1071 Fifth Avenue and East 82nd Street. The new museum building was finally opened on October 21, 1959, six months after Wright's death. The new building cost three million US dollars.

In 1960 Sweeney gave up the post of museum director. Only in 1961 was Thomas Messer appointed as his successor , who took over the management of the museum for 27 years. During this time, he expanded the collection and established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a world-class institution known for its special exhibitions. In 1963, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum received part of Justin K. Thannhauser's collection , a total of 70 works, on the condition that they were on permanent display. In 1988 Messer was replaced by Thomas Krens as director of the museum. He planned an expansion program for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , which included a museum expansion according to plans by the architect Gwathmey Siegel and the restoration of the museum building designed by Wright.

The museum was closed to the public from 1990 to 1992 for restoration. During this time, the masterpieces of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum went on a celebrated world tour and were to be seen in Australia , Madrid , Venice , Montreal and Tokyo . Through purchases and donations, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation came into the possession of the Panza di Biumo Collection of Minimalist and Conceptual Art in 1991 . This increased the museum's collection considerably. In 1992 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was reopened with the extension.

In 2005 Lisa Dennison , up to then deputy director and chief curator, took over the post of director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum . In 2006, the restoration of the facade of the museum began. During a 17-month examination, all cracks in the cement were determined beforehand with the help of echo technology and documented on a map by means of laser measurements. This demanding work was completed in summer 2008.

Museum building

planning

The different floors of the spiral ramp

The roof structure of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Interior view over the ramp to the dome

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned in June 1943 to plan the museum building, which is still in use today . In a letter to Wright, Hilla von Rebay explained why she had chosen him as an architect and what expectations she had in him: “I need a fighter, a lover of space, an agitator, a tester and a wise man. . . . I want a temple of spirit, a monument! " (German: " I need a fighter, a lover of space, an agitator, an examiner and a wise man ... I want a temple of the spirit, a monument " ) Frank Lloyd Wright began planning the building, in the course of which he came into conflict with the city administration, his clients, the public and the art world, who all had different ideas for the museum. The start of construction was delayed, among other things, because the New York building authorities criticized 32 points in the original plan. Rebay also influenced the planning. The white color of the museum goes back to her, whereas Wright first planned with red. In addition, Wright was not convinced of the location of New York, as he considered the city to be overpopulated and built up. Wright's plan was three buildings: a large rotunda , a small rotunda, and a tower. Originally he wanted to build the museum mainly out of glass, but this material no longer played such an important role in the design that was implemented.

architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright's building has the basic shape of a rotunda . The circle is the main motif of the floor plan and the terraced floors. Overall, the museum combines various geometric shapes such as triangles , circles , ovals , arcs and squares . In addition to the main building, there is also a small rotunda, which first housed the Guggenheim and Rebay apartments and is now used as an office building. With the expansion of the museum at the beginning of the 1990s, the tower planned by Wright was also realized.

The architecture of the building is significantly influenced by its location near Central Park . Nature not only provides a haven of calm from the hustle and bustle of New York, it also provided inspiration for Wright's construction. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is an attempt to translate the plasticity of organic structures into architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright created a winding ramp with a three percent incline on which the works of art are exhibited, in contrast to the concepts normally found in museums, in which the visitor is guided through various interconnected rooms. Wright's concept includes an elevator that transports visitors to the top of the ramp so that they can walk down past the artwork. The galleries are divided into different sections, which is based on the structure of the chamber division of a citrus fruit . The rotunda is open on the inside so that the visitor can view works of art from several segments and floors from different angles. A glass dome serves as a roof 92 feet above the ground.

In order to strengthen the effect of the pictures in the room, bright, fluorescent lamps were installed that cancel out the sunlight, creating such a background light that the pictures are given a special lightness.

In May 2005, the building was inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places . On October 6, 2008, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was granted National Historic Landmark status .

rating

Even in the run-up to construction, during the planning phase, the project was repeatedly criticized. Some critics of the project, especially artists, rejected the museum's architecture because it stole the show from the pictures. The art critic John Canaday said in the New York Times “A war between architecture and painting, in which both come out badly maimed” (German: “A war between architecture and painting from which both emerge injured”). One artist said of the building “He [Frank Lloyd Wright] has made painting absolutely unimportant” (German: “He [Frank Lloyd Wright] made painting absolutely unimportant”) and the New York Daily Mirror wrote “A building that should be put in a museum to show how mad the 20th century is ”(German:“ A building that should be exhibited in a museum to show how crazy the 20th century is ”).

In addition to the criticism of the museum building, it also met with a positive response. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is considered the most important building from Frank Lloyd Wright's last years. The architect Philip Johnson said, “Mr. Wright's greatest building, New York's greatest building. One of the greatest rooms of the 20th century "(German:" Mr. Wright's greatest building, New York's greatest building. One of the greatest rooms of the 20th century ").

The museum building was nominated for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015 .

collection

The collection on display at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum comprises several different parts of the collection that have been amassed over time. The basic stock consists of the Solomon R. Guggenheim collection, which initially concentrated heavily on abstract painting . During this time he acquired key works by Wassily Kandinsky such as the pictures Im schwarzen Viereck and Komposition 8 from 1923. Solomon Guggenheim's collection grew steadily and is now known as the founding collection . It also included works such as Contrast of Forms by Fernand Légers or Robert Delaunay's Simultaneous Window . In addition, Guggenheim also bought art that cannot be described as non-representational. So he acquired Marc Chagall's Paris, seen through the window, and green violinist . However, all the works that Guggenheim bought were considered avant-garde.

The collection increased by 730 objects with the acquisition of the estate of the art dealer Karl Nierendorf in 1948. These included 110 works by Paul Klee , 24 by Lyonel Feininger , 18 Kandinskys, six Chagalls and two paintings by Joan Miró . It was also the knight-errant of Oskar Kokoschka acquired. Thus, the collection contains important works of Expressionism and Surrealism , and was in time to other key works as society Paris by Max Beckmann added.

The collection has also included sculptures such as Adam and Eve by Constantin Brâncuși since the 1950s . In addition, works by sculptors such as Alexander Calder , David Smith and Jean Arp , some of which came from the Katherine Dreiers collection , are among the exhibits in the collection. In addition, with the acquisition of the painting Man with Crossed Arms from 1899 by Paul Cézanne, the principle of only including works of the 20th century in the collection was lifted.

With the Thannhauser Collection in 1963, the collection was expanded to include works from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism . It first came to the museum on loan and later passed into the possession of the Guggenheim Foundation as an inheritance . These include works such as Hills near Saint-Rémy by Vincent van Gogh , Haere Mai by Paul Gauguin , In front of the mirror by Édouard Manet and Hilly Landscape near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro , which dates from 1867 and is still the oldest work in the collection is. 32 paintings and works on paper by Pablo Picasso such as Le Moulin de la Galette and Woman with Yellow Hair also come from the Thannhauser Collection . After the museum was already in possession of some works from the analytical- cubist and thus abstract phase of Picasso such as the accordion player , it is now in possession of one of the largest public collections of Picasso's works after the addition of the Thannhauser Collection .

Man with Crossed Arms by Paul Cézanne
Hill at Saint-Rémy by Vincent van Gogh
In front of the mirror by Edouard Manet
Hilly landscape near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Panza Collection added works from the 1960s and 1970s with a focus on abstract paintings and sculptures. It included minimalist sculptures by sculptors such as Dan Flavin , Donald Judd and Carl Andre , as well as minimalist paintings by artists such as Brice Marden , Robert Ryman and Robert Mangold . The Panza Collection also included post-minimalist and conceptual art works by artists such as Richard Serra , James Turrell and Robert Morris . In addition, the number of works in the collection doubled in the 1990s, as photographs and media art were added. For example, the collection includes 200 photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe .

Special exhibitions

In addition to the permanent exhibition of the collection, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum also presents several special exhibitions every year. Particular attention was the exhibition of Peggy Guggenheim Collection in the 1960s, are part of a touring exhibition of the collection Peggy Guggenheim was. This exhibition was a specialty against the background of the conflict with her uncle Solomon R. Guggenheim and was probably the decisive factor in the later transfer of the ownership rights to her collection to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation . In 1998 another special exhibition of works from Peggy Guggenheim's collection took place under the title Peggy Guggenheim: A Centennial Celebration .

At the end of 1979, Joseph Beuys was the first German artist to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. It was the first comprehensive presentation of his works in America, which received a lot of attention from the audience, but also a lot of criticism. The exhibited works were widely perceived as problematic by US critics due to their apparent roots in the “Third Reich” and the personal cult that the artist apparently built around himself. This form of reception of Beuys' works lasted for a decade and was only critically revised in the early 1990s.

A retrospective on Hilla Rebay's work , which was held in 2005 and showed her paintings, drawings and collages , also received a lot of attention and good reviews . With this exhibition, Rebay was rehabilitated within the Guggenheim Foundation and the museum, after she had not even been invited to the opening of the museum building after she had stopped working for them.

There were also special exhibitions on the art of certain regions such as Africa: The Art of a Continent from 1996 or China: 5000 Years and on design such as The Art of the Motorcycle , both of which were held in 1998. The work of some artists has also been honored with special exhibitions such as Picasso on the War Years: 1937-1945 from 1990 and James Rosenquist: A Retrospective , which took place in 2004. There are also exhibitions such as Surrealism: Two Private Eyes - The Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections from 1999, which deal with a specific art movement. In 2010 the exhibition Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936 was on view at the museum .

Film series

The Guggenheim Foundation , mainly represented by its headquarters in New York, has for a long time also offered a presentation opportunity for artistic experimental films by young up-and-coming artists from all over the world. Participation in screening series such as the Mexperimental Film Series or the German Cinema are considered to be important stations in the vita of the respective filmmaker.

reception

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum appears frequently as a backdrop in films and TV series . For example, in the movie Men in Black , Will Smith chases an alien on the spiral ramp. The same ramp serves as a penguin slide in the movie Mr. Popper's Penguins . The museum was also featured in the film LA Story when a roller skater played by Steve Martin drives through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is filmed by a friend. An acquaintance he meets in the museum asks him: “Have you tried the Guggenheim?” In the Seinfeld series , the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was also discussed when the character George claims to be the architect of the museum extension. In The International by Tom Tykwer , the (im is Babelsberg Film Studios faithfully reconstructed) rotunda scene of an extended shootout between Clive Owen and Followers. The American artist Matthew Barney has an intermediate part of the third part of his Cremaster Cycle (1994–2002), Cremaster 3 (2002), entitled " The Order ", play at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He includes the extraordinary architecture in his avant-garde film . In addition, the main character in the film When in Rome (2010) is the curator, so some scenes are shown there.

literature

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (Ed.): The Guggenheim - The Collection . Hatje, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-7757-1775-5 (catalog for the exhibition, art and exhibition hall Bonn, July 21, 2006 - January 7, 2007); English: The Guggenheim Collection, ISBN 978-0-89207-349-8 .
Thomas Krens, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum . Hatje, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7757-0571-6 .
Jeff Goldberg, Ezra Stoller: Guggenheim Bilbao / Guggenheim New York . Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY 1999, ISBN 978-1-56898-193-2 .