Wilhelm Hack Museum
The Wilhelm Hack Museum is a museum for modern and contemporary art in the city of Ludwigshafen am Rhein . Due to its collection of masterpieces by artists such as Kasimir Sewerinowitsch Malewitsch , Piet Mondrian , Wassily Kandinsky , Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol , the Wilhelm Hack Museum is today the most important museum for modern and contemporary art in Rhineland-Palatinate . The landmark of the museum is its ceramic facade, which the Catalan artist Joan Miró designed on the southeast side of the house in 1980.
history
The city of Ludwigshafen began buying paintings, sculptures and graphics, mainly from Palatinate artists (e.g. Johann Georg Müller , Max Slevogt , Karl Dillinger , Otto Dill , and many more) after the First World War . After considerable wartime losses, the city continued its collecting activity in the 1940s. From 1953, the focus shifted to the art of Expressionism in order, according to the then Mayor Dr. Hans Klüber to promote an art movement “which was ridiculed and persecuted as 'degenerate' art in the times of barbarism”. Works by such outstanding artists as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Max Pechstein , Emil Nolde and Max Beckmann found their way into the collection.
The trigger for the foundation of the museum was the generous donation from the businessman Wilhelm Hack , who bequeathed his art collection to the city of Ludwigshafen in 1971. In addition to the “Gondorfer Fund”, a grave find from Gondorf on the Moselle during the migration period, and mediaeval art, this also included a collection of works of classical modernism that reflected the development of abstract art from its beginnings around 1910 to the 1950s a rare density: from Wassily Kandinsky , Kasimir Malewitsch and Piet Mondrian to Jackson Pollock and Max Bill , leading artists of non-representational painting are represented. Complemented by the city's art collection, the Wilhelm Hack Foundation has formed the basis of the almost 10,000 works collection since the new museum building opened in 1979. In 1988, through the foundation of the Düsseldorf lawyer and art patron Heinz Beck, the Wilhelm Hack Museum came into the possession of one of the largest German collections of graphics and multiples from the 1960s and 1970s, known today as the Beck Collection . Since its inception, the museum has had more than two million visitors.
Directors of the museum
- Manfred Fath 1979–1984
- Bernhard Holeczek 1984-1994
- Richard W. Gassen 1994-2007
- Reinhard Spieler 2007–2014
- René Zechlin since 2014
Sponsorship group
The support group Wilhelm-Hack-Museum was founded in the year the museum opened to support and contribute to the work of the house. Today it has almost 1500 members. It enables the purchase of works of art, participates in the editions of the museum, helps with events and promotes educational opportunities. The support group has been running a museum shop on a voluntary basis since 1995, the proceeds of which go to the Wilhelm Hack Museum. The museum's young support group for members between the ages of 20 and 35 was founded in 2017 under the name Wilhelms Freunde.
architecture
With the acceptance of Wilhelm Hack's foundation , which was officially approved by the Ludwigshafen city council in July 1971, the city also undertook the obligation to construct an adequate building that would bear the name of the founder. In September 1972, a nationwide architectural competition was announced for the new building in the heart of the city. The Stuttgart architects Hagstolz and Kraft emerged as the winners of the competition, whose design was awarded the contract in November 1973, so that construction could begin in May 1975. Just three years later, on April 28, 1979, the Wilhelm Hack Museum opened its doors. The most striking feature of the building is its “open architecture”, which is reflected both inside and outside. The architects deliberately avoided “inhibitions”, such as a staircase or a heavy portal, which were common in older museum buildings. Instead, the Wilhelm Hack Museum was given a glass entrance door and a glass facade that ran around most of the building. This open character continues inside the building on a usable area of almost 3000 square meters.
Special exhibitions take place in the lower part of the building, which presents itself as an easily manageable room divided by partition walls. There is also a lecture area integrated into the room, which is used for readings, concerts and other events. The presentation of the collection is exhibited in the upper area comprising several levels. Galleries, connecting bridges, windows and stairs give insight into other parts of the exhibition and enable interesting perspectives. The administration rooms and the museum's own painting school, in which various courses and workshops are offered, are located in the right part of the building and in the basement. From April 2008 to February 2009, the museum was refurbished in an energetically sustainable way. The result of the renovation, which cost a total of 4.6 million euros, included a new photovoltaic system, the latest air conditioning technology and a new lighting system. With the Wilhelm Hack Museum, the city of Ludwigshafen has been a partner in the EU's “GreenBuilding” program since September 2009 .
Miró wall
The landmark of the Wilhelm Hack Museum is the ceramic wall made of 7,200 tiles by the Catalan artist Joan Miró, which, with a width of 55 meters and a height of ten meters, is one of the largest works of the Catalan artist and the largest work of art in Ludwigshafen. The southeast side of the building was already intended for the installation of an oversized work of art in the construction plan. The mural was completed at the beginning of 1980 and is one of several collaborations between the artist and the ceramicist Joan Gardy-Artigas , who undertook the technical implementation of Miró's design. The signature of both men can be found on the outer left edge of the facade.
Outdoor art
In addition to the Miró wall, there are other works of art in the outdoor area of the Wilhelm Hack Museum. To the right of the entrance area is the endless staircase by the Swiss artist Max Bill . According to the artist, the 19 steps made of granite, which turn almost ten meters upwards, indicate the philosophical principle of hope of his friend, Ernst Bloch , who was born in Ludwigshafen . On the left, the Deux lignes indéterminées ( two indefinite lines ) by the French artist Bernar Venet from 1993 unfold .
The steel sculpture, which has been made on permanent loan to the museum by the Förderkreis, is made up of two monumental steel bands to form an irregular spiral, is around two and a half meters high and weighs four tons. It gets its color from a rust-red layer.
Behind the Wilhelm Hack Museum is the ten meter high marble sculpture Ombralatina ( Southern Shadow ) by the Italian artist Marcello Morandini . The stele consists of a metal core to which slabs of white marble from Ticino and black granite from Zimbabwe are alternately attached. The steel sculpture Singularität by the Krefeld artist Rolf Nolden , embedded in the pavement, was installed in 2011 and is dedicated to the physicist Stephen Hawking and his theory of the “invisible black hole”.
See also: Public Art in Ludwigshafen
Collections
The Gondorfer Fund and the Collection of Sacred Art since the Middle Ages
The Gondorf find is a grave find from the migration period with Roman and Franconian grave goods, which was discovered shortly before the start of the Second World War in the municipality of Gondorf on the Moselle and soon afterwards entered the collection of the museum founder Wilhelm Hack . The find is not shown permanently in the museum, but is exhibited at irregular intervals.
The Wilhelm Hack Foundation's medieval collection consists of works of art that were created between 1200 and 1550. It includes metalwork, ivory, sculptures made of wood and stone, panel, book and glass paintings, including works of art of high standing and art historical significance.
Gondorf Fund
Maria lactans , Bavaria around 1520-30
Reliquary bust of a holy martyr
Mary with child in the company of six saints, medieval panel picture
The Beck Collection
The collection donated in 1988 by Heinz Beck from Düsseldorf comprises more than 2,500 works of art, primarily print editions and multiples . In addition to the American and English classics of Pop Art such as Andy Warhol , Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Hamilton, you will also find works by the French Nouveaux Réalistes , the Viennese Actionists as well as Concept Art and the Fluxus movement. The collection also includes numerous artist records and books, as well as artist cups. The Beck Collection received its own exhibition in the Wilhelm Hack Museum in 2013, which preceded an extensive research project on the scientific processing of the collection.
20th century / present collection
The focus of the collection is on classic modern art , concrete art , pop art and contemporary art . The inventory of art from the 20th century and the present is made up of items from the Ludwigshafen City Collection, the Beck Collection and the Wilhelm Hack Collection. It includes significant works of classical modernism , concrete art , pop art and contemporary art and is constantly being expanded in this sense.
Since 2009, a thematic selection of works from the collection has been exhibited in the annually changing collection presentation, until 2014 under the title hackordnung. The exhibition series Cabinet Pieces shows works on paper, mostly also from the museum's collection. The hack pieces series, later titled Zoom, ( Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (2010), Otto Nemitz (2011), Theo van Doesburg (2012), Stehende Muttergottes (2013)) focuses on works or artists from the museum and their art-historical context . Overall, the Wilhelm Hack Museum pursues a museum work that deals with the collection in a sustainable manner.
Special exhibitions
Three to four large changing exhibitions are shown in the Wilhelm Hack Museum every year. They deal with the work of individual artists or groups of artists, with art and work genres or devote themselves to a specific topic. The exhibition Der Blaue Reiter achieved a record with 140,000 visitors in 2004.
Rudolf Scharpf Gallery
The Rudolf-Scharpf-Galerie, opened in 1982, is operated by the city of Ludwigshafen as a project gallery for the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. The exhibitions mainly show young, contemporary works. The gallery is located in the Hemshof district in the three-story birth house of the artist Rudolf Scharpf, which the artist gave to the city of Ludwigshafen in 1977. Scharpf also donated his entire artistic estate to the Wilhelm Hack Museum.
Dis> play
From 2009 to 2013 the display was the platform for new media in the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. In the former studio, a video or projection work was shown in the rhythm of the major temporary exhibitions, sometimes parallel to work presentations of young positions in the Rudolf-Scharpf-Galerie.
hack-museumsgARTen
Since March 2012 the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum has been active with the art project hack-museumsgARTen on Hans-Klüber-Platz. Under the motto “a garden for everyone!”, The community garden was created based on the model of the Berlin princess garden and is open to all citizens, families, associations and groups in the city. In 2012, three artists took part in the garden project: Stuttgart's Rainer Ecke with an oversized walk-in flower pot, Fritz Eicher, who lives in Berlin, with the wild bee project “zeit.arbeit” and Eberhard Grillparzer from Ludwigshafen with the interactive video art campaign “Dragonfly Flight”. In the following years the garden was also included in various museum and art projects. The marble sculpture Ombralatina ( Southern Shadow ) by the Italian artist Marcello Morandini is now surrounded by flower beds. The garden is based on an open participation and design concept; Since its opening, up to 200 citizens have participated at times. Its appearance is mainly characterized by box beds, there is also an insect hotel, a pavilion for events and devices for exchanging books and food sharing. In the hack-museumsgARTen, especially in the summer months, events such as concerts, courses, botanical tours and workshops take place on the gardener's own initiative.
Biennial for contemporary photography
The Wilhelm Hack Museum is regularly represented as an exhibition venue at the biennale for contemporary photography , the largest curated photo festival in Germany, which takes place every two years in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region . Until 2016, the Biennale was called Fotofestival Mannheim Ludwigshafen Heidelberg. As a supporting program, lectures, artist talks and numerous other events take place in the Wilhelm Hack Museum. In 2020, the Wilhelm Hack Museum will also host the Biennale for Current Photography. Under the title "When Images Collide", various artists were able to present their photographic works - especially collages - under the curator David Campany.
Art education
The Wilhelm Hack Museum offers a broad educational program for children, young people and families. This includes themed tours and a variety of workshops. The museum educational activities are supported and organized by the sponsoring group. The respective offers are tailored to the current exhibitions. In the case of programs for school classes and kindergarten groups, one or more works must first be viewed in the museum before the impressions are creatively processed in the museum studio. The mediation team can also come to schools, kindergartens, retirement homes and other institutions on request. For birthday celebrations, the museum offers individually designed programs for both children and adults.
Mediation for children and young people
The museum has a wide range of educational opportunities for children and young people of different ages. Children from four to six years of age can gain their first experience with artistic techniques and materials, while schoolchildren are also offered a more intensive examination of individual works of art from the museum. As part of the SprachKunst-Werkstatt, museum educators and elementary school teachers prepare weekly museum visits for their school classes, during which the children are guided through the visual stimulation of the works of art to creatively test their own language skills and to expand them individually. During the school holidays, special holiday programs for children between the ages of six and twelve are offered, accompanied by teachers and artists. At the end of the program, the participants can present the self-made work to their families in the painting studio. In the cooperation project “hackerclub” of the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, OK-TV Ludwigshafen and the Carl-Bosch-Gymnasium , the pupils deal with various topics related to the museum in self-made short videos.
Mediation for families and adults
A family day with its own program takes place for each new exhibition. On cross-generational afternoons, the focus is on the creative collaboration between grandparents, parents and children. With formats such as Art Enjoyment in the Afternoon and the Philosophical Café , adults can take a detailed look at the works of art on display and analyze the content of the images. In addition to theoretical examinations, there are also practical courses in which creative ideas can be implemented in the painting studio based on the exhibitions. With the “Art Lounge” the museum opens its doors for a long evening with cocktails, music and short tours. For teachers and educators, the museum regularly organizes further training and information events related to the current exhibitions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lord Mayor Dr. Hans Klüber quote: http://www.kunstportal-pfalz.de/27/oid,6149/bid,1328/profil-stadt-ludwigshafen-wilhelm-hack-museum.html
- ^ Förderkreis Wilhelm-Hack-Museum eV Accessed on July 29, 2016 .
- ^ Richard W. Gassen: The Wilhelm Hack Museum. 20 years old - and still young . In: Förderkreis Wilhelm-Hack-Museum eV (Hrsg.): Art of the 20th century. Wilhelm Hack Museum. A selection from the inventory . Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1999, p. 11-12 .
- ↑ Renovation: http://www.ludwigshafen.de/nachhaltig/stadtumbau/ludwigshafen-inszeniert/wilhelm-hack-museum/
- ^ Richard W. Gassen: The Wilhelm Hack Museum. 20 years old - and still young . In: Förderkreis Wilhelm-Hack-Museum eV (Hrsg.): Art of the 20th century. Wilhelm Hack Museum. A selection from the inventory . Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1999, p. 13-14 .
- ↑ Reinhard Spieler: Foreword . In: Kerstin Skrobanek, Nina Schallenberg, Reinhard Spieler (eds.): Well placed. The Heinz Beck Collection . Wienand Verlag, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-86832-166-1 , pp. 6 .
- ^ Richard W. Gassen: The Wilhelm Hack Museum. 20 years old - and still young . In: Förderkreis Wilhelm-Hack-Museum eV (Hrsg.): Art of the 20th century. Wilhelm Hack Museum. A selection from the inventory . Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1999, p. 15-19 .
- ↑ Kiefer, Theresia: When ideas take root. An art museum begins to garden . In: Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (ed.): Hack -museumsgARTen. A garden for everyone! Museum meets urban gardening . 1st edition. orange press, Freiburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-936086-82-9 , p. 40 - 43 .
- ↑ experience art! Program of the Wilhelm Hack Museum. Wilhelm Hack Museum, accessed on July 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Information brochure from the Wilhelm Hack Museum: Experience art! Museum studio program January to August 2017
- ↑ Youtube channel of the hacker club. Retrieved July 28, 2017 .
- ↑ experience art! Program Brokerage August 2017 to January 2018. Retrieved on August 1, 2017 .
literature
- Inventory catalog: Förderkreis Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Hrsg.): Art of the 20th century. Wilhelm Hack Museum. A selection from the inventory. , Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1999.
- Richard W. Gassen (Ed.): Graphics of Expressionism from the holdings of the museum. Catalog, Ludwigshafen, 1989.
- Kerstin Skrobanek, Nina Schallenberg, Reinhard Spieler (ed.): In a good mood. The Heinz Beck Collection, Wienand Verlag, Cologne 2013.
- Marlis Jonas (photos), Richard W. Gassen (text): KunstRaum Stadt. Public art in Ludwigshafen am Rhein . Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-936636-17-8 .
- Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Ed.): Art of the Middle Ages. Wilhelm Hack Museum Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Pfälzische Verlagsgesellschaft GmbH, Neustadt an der Weinstrasse - Landau / Pfalz.
- Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Ed.): Hack -museumsgARTen. A garden for everyone! Museum meets Urban Gardening , orange press, Freiburg 2017.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 28 ′ 48.3 " N , 8 ° 26 ′ 38.7" E