Abteiberg Museum

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Municipal Museum Abteiberg
Mönchengladbach museum with sculpture garden.jpg
Museum Abteiberg with sculptures in 2005
Data
place Mönchengladbach
Art
Art museum for modern & contemporary visual arts
architect Hans Hollein
opening June 23, 1982
Number of visitors (annually) 36,000 (2008)
operator
City of Mönchengladbach
management
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-095716

The Abteiberg Museum is a municipal museum in Mönchengladbach .

There is no definite year the Mönchengladbach Museum of Fine Arts was founded, 1904 is the preferred date in literature, and 1901 is also mentioned as an alternative. In 1904 the company moved into its own building for the first time. In 1901, the holdings were systematically cataloged from a museological point of view. After moving into the new museum building in 1982, the name Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach replaced the name Städtisches Museum Mönchengladbach . Since 2009 it has been called Museum Abteiberg again. It is right next to the Gladbach Minster, about a minute from the Alter Markt.

The Abteiberg Museum is located on a steep southern slope. In 1982, after ten years of planning and construction, it was inaugurated with great public participation. Today it is considered one of the main works of the Viennese architect Hans Hollein and one of the founding buildings of the international postmodern era . The architect Frank O. Gehry said that without the Abteiberg Museum, his own Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao would have been unthinkable.

The museum building is at the beginning of a development in museum architecture in which the building itself was treated as an art object. “Almost all architecture critics were surprised by this completely new spatial conception of an art museum.” (Dietmar Steiner in art 7/04, p. 54.) In Germany, buildings like the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1984), the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt (1985), the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt (1991, also by Hans Hollein) and the Kunstmuseum Bonn (1992). The building and the museum garden have been registered as a monument since 2017 .

The Abteiberg Museum is a museum for the fine arts of the 20th and 21st centuries . Built between 1972 and 1982, the architectural synthesis of the arts shows works by Joseph Beuys , Richard Serra , Andy Warhol , Sigmar Polke , Gerhard Richter , Martin Kippenberger , Markus Oehlen , Heinz Mack , Ulrich Rückriem and Gregor Schneider, among others .

In December 2009 the artist Gregor Schneider created temporary access to the museum, an inconspicuous garage next to the museum parking lot. Schneider created a tunnel-like entrance to the museum back in 2008.

In 2016 the art museum was voted Museum of the Year by the German section of the International Art Critics Association AICA ("one of the leading addresses for contemporary art in Germany").

History of the collection

Mönchengladbach, Museum Abteiberg side view
Mönchengladbach, Abteiberg Museum, entrance and sculpture by Alexander Calder
Mönchengladbach, Abteiberg Museum
Mönchengladbach, Abteiberg Museum, detail
Mönchengladbach, Abteiberg Museum Garden

The first objects for a city history collection were brought together in 1887. From 1901 these objects were systematically sorted, cataloged and exhibited in the town hall. The museum association founded in 1902 supported the further development and presentation of the collection. In 1903 the collection was divided into three areas: the arts and crafts and ethnographic collections, the history department and the natural science department. The collection was significantly expanded in the following years through extensive acquisitions. In 1906 a textile fabric collection with around 4000 samples was created by Mr. Voos acquired. In 1907 parts of the Kramer collection were added. This purchase included medieval wooden sculptures, armor, glasses, weapons and jugs.

A decisive new accent was set in 1922 by Walter Kaesbach , who donated numerous works of expressionist art to his hometown - subject to an appropriate presentation . This collection consisted of 97 paintings, watercolors and drawings etc. a. by Lyonel Feininger , Erich Heckel , Heinrich Nauen , Emil Nolde and Christian Rohlfs . For the presentation of this collection in Mönchengladbach, the "Art Association of the Dr. Walter Kaesbach Foundation" was founded in the same year. Due to insufficient presentation possibilities, this collection has meanwhile been exhibited at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld on the initiative of Walter Kaesbach . It was not until 1928 that the collection of expressionist art could be shown in an appropriate form in the newly opened museum in the Karl-Brandts-Haus. In the meantime, the collection had been expanded to include works by Heinrich Campendonk , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Wilhelm Lehmbruck , August Macke , Wilhelm Morgner , Otto Mueller , Hermann Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff . The natural history collection and the collection for prehistory and early history were also shown in this building. Other works of fine arts and applied arts were exhibited in the Oskar-Kühlen-Haus.

In 1934, the collections from both houses were combined in the Karl-Brandts-Haus, which was now called "House of Art". The Oskar-Kühlen-Haus became the seat of the new "Haus der Heimat", which was dedicated to homeland care and family research. In 1937 the majority of the Walter Kaesbach Foundation was confiscated as part of the “ Degenerate Art ” campaign. Only seven works from the foundation remained in the collection, including a flower still life by Heinrich Nauen and three brush drawings by Emil Nolde . Towards the end of the Second World War in 1944, parts of the collection were evacuated to Alme Castle near Brilon and the Niesen and Borlinghausen castles near Willebadessen .

Heinrich Dattenberg , who became the new museum director in 1945 after the end of the war, tried to bring the decentralized holdings of the collection back together. He also tried to buy back seized expressionist paintings or to replace them with works of equal value. In 1956 he succeeded in purchasing Alexej von Jawlensky's painting Lady with a Blue Hat . Even Walter Kaesbach found itself after the Second World War again prepared to donate a selection of expressionist works the Municipal Museum. The low purchase budget and the rising prices of Expressionist artists on the art market in the 1950s and 1960s ultimately led to a concentration on the collection of contemporary art.

Dattenberg's successor Johannes Cladders consistently continued this collection strategy from 1967 onwards. In 1970 the Etzold Collection came into the possession of the Municipal Museum on permanent loan . With the opening of the new museum building on the Abteiberg, further permanent loans were added, especially the Onnasch and Marx collections. The Onnasch collection is now largely in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . The Marx Collection is now in the Neue Nationalgalerie in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin . As a result of these moves, the Städtisches Museum lost a major work in its collection, Unschlitt / Tallow by Joseph Beuys , even though it had been offered to the city for purchase by the collector. More recent loans come from the Rheingold Collection and the Schürmann Collection.

Purchases for the museum's collection were made possible, among other things, by funds from the WDR , the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Stadtsparkasse Mönchengladbach, the museum association and its support group. In 2018, with financial support from the Kulturstiftung der Länder, Land Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kunststiftung NRW and Hans Fries-Stiftung, the collection and archive of Erik and Dorothee Andersch was acquired and the museum's holdings were expanded to include works by Fluxus in particular .

Head of the museum

  • 1907–1933: Carl Schurz
  • 1933–1945: Julius Koenzgen
  • 1945–1967: Heinrich Dattenberg
  • 1967–1985: Johannes Cladders
  • 1985–1994: Dierk Stemmler
  • 1995-2003: Veit Loers
  • since 2004: Susanne Titz

Collection focus

The list names the most important works in the collection, sorted alphabetically by artist name. Some of the works mentioned are on permanent loan from the Etzold Collection and the Mönchengladbacher Sparkassenstiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft in the collection. The museum has extensive holdings of drawings, watercolors and prints in its collection.

expressionism

constructivism

Dadaism

Informal

photography

  • Man Ray : Portrait of James Joyce, 1922/1959
  • Man Ray: Kiki's Lips, 1929/1959
  • Man Ray: Tears, 1933/1959
  • Man Ray: Woman with loose hair, 1931/1959
  • Man Ray: Self-Portrait with Camera, 1931/1959
  • Man Ray: Antique head with mirror, 1931/1959

Op art

ZERO

Nouveau Réalisme

Pop art

Minimal art

New savages

Sculpture garden

In 2002 the Abteiberg sculpture garden was opened. This gave the Abteiberg Museum an extended outdoor area with works by modern artists that had been planned for some time. The area is a park with copper beeches and chestnuts. The park is the former garden of the abbey. It extends from the platform of the museum and the adjacent provost building to a lower wall that is part of the old city wall. The outdoor area has meanwhile been supplemented by the parish garden belonging to the minster .

In the upper part of the sculpture garden are the works Soft inverted Q by Claes Oldenburg , Tree of water / Breath of Leaves by Giuseppe Penone , Juan by Bernhard Luginbühl and Königsstuhl by Anatol , which were already set up before its opening in the rice terraces furnished by Hans Hollein .

Giuseppe Penone: Tree of water / Breath of Leaves

The center of the system is the Arolsen piece (1992) by Larry Bell - two glass double cubes, one pink, the other azure blue. Both cubes are inserted diagonally into the existing water basin next to the fountain. The six-meter-high Anello ("Ring"), which Mauro Staccioli created from Cor-Ten steel in 2001 , is just under a hundred meters away . By François Morellet a nearly 3-meter-high ball that is made of latticed rods in stainless steel stems. Above it, also on the grounds of the parish garden, is the Flause (1998) by Franz West , a pink aluminum sculpture . In the vicinity there is a bronze stele, a graceful female torso by Maria Lehnen . The remaining sculptures are works by three younger artists who are committed to the aesthetics of the nineties. The American artist Jorge Pardo created a group of six smaller bronze sculptures that line the paths above and to the side of the fountain. Their organic-abstract amoeba forms have openings and carry plastic bags. As the title Garbage Can suggests, they serve as waste bins. Other works in the park are by Dan Peterman and Stefan Kern .

Outside the sculpture garden in front of the museum, sculptures by Alexander Calder , Thomas Rentmeister , Daniel Pflumm and Thomas Virnich set artistic signals and are intended to create a connection to the planned sculpture mile in the city of Mönchengladbach.

Other facilities in the museum

The museum also has an audiovisual facility, a painting class, a library and a cafeteria. Guided tours through the house are offered under professional guidance.

History of the museum building

In 1904 the collections of the city of Mönchengladbach moved into their own building for the first time. It was the former Protestant elementary school on Fliescherberg, which served as a museum until 1925. The building was later demolished. In 1911 and 1912, the city planned a new building for the museum. In 1913, 200,000 marks were made available for this new building . The opening was planned for 1916. This new building plan failed at the beginning of the First World War .

In 1922 the plans for the new building of a museum received renewed impetus from the foundation of Walter Kaesbach's expressionist paintings to the city of Mönchengladbach. This building was to be built on Hohenzollernstrasse. 1,000,000 marks were available for the "Kunstpalast", for which Thorn Prikker had already designed frescoes. As a result of the hyperinflation of 1923 in the German Reich, these funds were lost. This ended the second new building project.

In 1924, Oskar Kühlens' house at Bismarckstrasse 97 came into the possession of the Municipal Museum as his legacy. This building with a facade in neo-Gothic style was built in 1896 by the architect Robert Neuhaus . In 1926, Karl Brandt's house on Kaiserstrasse was added as a further legacy, and it offered significantly more space. The City Museum's collection was opened in this building in 1928. In 1944 the building fell victim to the bombing raids on Mönchengladbach.

Due to the destruction of the Karl-Brandt-Haus, the Oskar-Kühlen-Haus was used as a museum building from 1945 to 1982. In 1963 the city of Mönchengladbach decided to build a new museum again and commissioned the Essen architect Horst Loy with planning. In 1964, however, there was a fire in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Halle, the reconstruction of which devoured the funds for the new building of the museum.

From 1972 to 1982 the fourth attempt to plan and build a new building was successful. In 1972 the city's cultural committee approved a spatial program and the Austrian architect Hans Hollein was commissioned to draw up a preliminary design and an urban planning study. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 29, 1976 . In 1977 the building permit for the museum was granted. In the same year the structural work began and the foundation stone was laid (August 26, 1977). The topping-out ceremony took place on September 1, 1978. A year later, in 1979, the shell was accepted. Acceptance of use took place in December 1981 and the opening on June 23, 1982.

The plans carried out by Hans Hollein are considered "construction phase I" of the museum. "Construction phase II" was planned for a later date at an early stage. This second construction phase, which has not yet been implemented, is to be built between Abteistraße and Spatzenberg.

On March 6, 1996, Hollein received the order from the city of Mönchengladbach for a (renewed) preliminary design for the second construction phase, which was accepted by the city of Mönchengladbach on December 7, 1998. In 1999, in preparation for the expansion of the museum, the residential buildings between Abteistrasse and Spatzenberg were demolished. In 2002 the garage yard at the corner of Abteistraße / Krichelstraße was demolished. This enables a direct view from Hindenburgstrasse to the planned new main entrance. The start of construction has so far been delayed by the tight budget situation in the city of Mönchengladbach.

From mid-September 2006 to November 2007 the building was closed for renovation work. The facade elements and the building services were renewed, the interior renovated and the collections rearranged. The city of Mönchengladbach approved 4.2 million euros for this. The museum reopened on November 4, 2007. In the meantime, the “Museum X” developed by realities: united and located a few hundred meters away in the former theater on Hindenburgstrasse has shown seven special exhibitions on contemporary art.

Temporal overview of the museum location

  • 1901–1904: Rooms in the town hall of Mönchengladbach
  • 1904–1925: Former Protestant primary school on Fliescherberg (demolished)
  • 1926–1944: Karl-Brandt-Haus on Kaiserstraße (destroyed in World War II)
  • 1924–1934 and 1945–1982: Oskar-Kühlen-Haus on Bismarckstrasse 97
  • since 1982: Municipal Museum Abteiberg on Abteistraße

architecture

The museum building was created in a dialogue between the architect Hans Hollein and the then museum director Johannes Cladders. In 1972 the Viennese architect received the order for a preliminary design and an urban development study. An orphaned plot of land on a hillside within the medieval Mönchengladbach city center was designated as the building site. The architectural design, for which the groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1976 and the foundation stone was laid in 1977, takes three central parameters into account:

  1. the topographical situation,
  2. the partly historically traditional development of the surrounding area and
  3. the curatorial concept developed by Johannes Cladders.

Hans Hollein's design of the building complex in several levels reacts to the topographical situation, with forms borrowed from Southeast Asian rice terraces forming the transition into the park. The surrounding development is taken up by the choice of the facade cladding on the one hand ( sandstone based on the Romanesque-Gothic cathedral and the Gothic Catholic main parish church) and the division into synthetically connected individual structural members on the other hand (which are harmoniously with the surrounding structures). The curatorial concept can be found inside through communicating spatial units, with partly variable walls. In contrast to the classic art museum, Hollein, in coordination with Cladders, dispenses with the traditional monolithic large form in the exterior and the regular room division inside. Rather, the building appears open and yet is functionally well thought out.

The building is rich in semantic allusions, in which, beyond a directly legible traditional apparatus, an awareness of history can be read, which also plays a major role in Hans Hollein's free artistic work. The administration tower of the museum echoes the towers of the minster and the main parish church, the shed roofs of the uppermost exhibition rooms refer to the factory architecture of Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, which in the 19th century was called "Rhenish Manchester" because of its numerous buildings for the textile industry and the entrance is open the so-called "plate plane" refers to the Propylaea of ​​the Acropolis .

In addition to the purely architectural elements, which are related to the architecture of early Viennese Modernism , Hans Hollein also designed all the interior design aspects - from the wall cladding to the lighting to the furniture.

The museum building with the terrace garden was entered on August 10, 2017 under the number A 057 as a monument in the monuments list of the city of Mönchengladbach .

Foundation, endowment

An art foundation will be set up for the museum to make it easier for collectors to donate works of art to the museum. This was decided by the culture committee of the city of Mönchengladbach in November 2009. For example, the Schürmann family from Aachen wants to donate works from their collection to the Abteiberg Museum. The collectors from Aachen had originally planned a private museum in Düsseldorf, now they want to hand over works of contemporary art to Mönchengladbach.

literature

To the collection of the municipal museum
  • Sabine Kimpel-Fehlemann : Walter Kaesbach Foundation. 1922-1937. The story of an expressionist collection in Mönchengladbach. City Archives, Mönchengladbach 1978.
  • Andrea Kastens (Red.): Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach. Westermann, Braunschweig 1982.
  • Hannelore Kersting (Ed.): Etzold Collection - a contemporary document. Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 1986.
  • Hannelore Kersting (Ed.): Art of the first half of the century. 1900 to 1960. Inventory catalog. Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 1990, ISBN 3-924039-05-4 .
  • Hannelore Kersting (Hrsg.): Art of the present. 1960 to 2007. Inventory catalog. Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-924039-55-4 .
  • Hannelore Kersting (Hrsg.): Annual gifts of the museum association. 1972-1991. Inventory catalog. Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 1992.
  • Veit Loers & AT Schaefer: Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach: Sculpture garden. Kühlen, Mönchengladbach 2003, ISBN 3-87448-238-3 .
On the architecture of the municipal museum
  • Wolfgang Pehnt : Hans Hollein, Mönchengladbach Museum. Architecture as a collage. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-23934-6 .
  • Rolf Hoffmann (Ed.): 10 years Museum Abteiberg, 90 years Museum Association. Mönchengladbach Museum Association, Mönchengladbach 1992.
  • Thorsten Smidt: Hans Holleins Museum Abteiberg. A museum concept consisting of a city model and a mine. In: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, Vol. 62 (2001), pp. 293-308.
About Johannes Cladders
  • Susanne Wischermann: Johannes Cladders: Museum man and artist. Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-631-31269-5 . (Additional dissertation Univ. Cologne 1996)
  • Thomas W. Kuhn: Johannes Cladders. Mönchengladbach 2011, ISBN 3-936824-33-9 .

Web links

Commons : Museum Abteiberg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rheinische Post : [1]
  2. ↑ Fluxus & Happening - Archives and Collections. Retrieved July 4, 2018 .
  3. ↑ "Stroke of luck" for the Abteiberg Museum. In: www.rp-online.de. Rheinische Post, June 30, 2018, accessed on July 4, 2018 .
  4. ^ Monuments list of the city of Mönchengladbach. (PDF; 433 kB) Status: November 16, 2018. City of Mönchengladbach, November 19, 2018, p. 1 , accessed on June 16, 2020 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 34 "  N , 6 ° 25 ′ 59"  E