Two venues one collection
Grand opening exhibition runs through 20 February 2005.
Baden-Baden. With the grand opening of the new museum in Baden-Baden the core holdings of the Frieder Burda Collection will be available for viewing for the first time. Approximately 150 of the Collections 550 exemplars of modern and contemporary art will be on display in both the new building designed by Richard Meier and the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (23 October 2004 through 20 February 2005). The architectural setting created by Richard Meier for the internationally renowned collection is open and airy and consists of two large halls two smaller rooms and a basement viewing area.
The exhibition, as arranged by the Collections founding director, Klaus Gallwitz, eschews strict chronological and historical categories and focuses instead on finding the location that maximizes the impact of the individual works. Anselm Kiefer´s painting Böhmen liegt am Meer, which hangs in the foyer, serves as a point of entry to the Collection: The painting formulates an utopian viewpointart imagines the impossiblewhich can be interpreted as a motto for both the exhibition and the museum as a whole.
Large format works by Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter are on exhibit in the new museum. Seven paintings, along with Picassos Personnage--the only modeled sculpture out of the artist´s expressive later workare juxtaposed with pieces by American abstract expressionists: Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb. Five pictures by Max Beckmann and a grouping of works from German expressionists consisting of paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke and Alexej von Jawlensky hang in an intimate chamber.
The core of the Collection was tapped once again to provide exhibition pieces for the large hall of the Staatliche Kunsthalle. Significant works of the second post-war generation of German painters are assembled here: Paintings by Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Eugen Schönebeck and Markus Lüpertz. In the surrounding rooms, the central theme is further developed with smaller format works, as well as complemented, by a room devoted to Arnulf Rainer.
In addition, there are paintings and sculptures here by other, primarily American, artists, such as Louise Borugeois, Alex Katz and William Copley. In keeping with the contemporary program of the Staatliche Kunsthalle, pictures from a younger generation of artists have also been extracted from the Collection for display.
The pieces presented in the new museum work also in a dialog with the architecture of building designer Richard Meier. The use of natural light and the presence of numerous windows place the interior and exterior views side by side, bringing art and nature together. A ramp connects the different levels: the architecture becomes an experience in the dimension of space. In order not to diminish the impact of the buildings bold and spacious design, the opening exhibition has been mounted without the use of partitions.
Commemorating the grand opening are a catalog of the exhibitions paintings and sculptures (296 pages, with 151 full-page color prints--Hatje Cantz Publisher), an architectural guide (96 pages, with plans, sketches and 21 full-page photos--Hatje Cantz, Publisher), as well as six individual volumes containing information about important artists in the Collection (Engelhardt & Bauer, Publisher).
Baden-Baden, 22.Oktober 2004
