Gallery of Contemporary Art

All art has been contemporary
till 31 October 2010

With the opening of the Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Kunsthalle presents its new collection of international art from 1960 – from Pop Art until today. The two-part building by Oswald Mathias Ungers opened in 1997. It consists of a cube of for storeys, clad in luminous light limestone, supplemented with a pedestal-storey, which connects the building with the old Kunsthalle, clad in red granite. The building is determined by its urbanistic context and the connection with the original building of the Kunsthalle on the one hand, and by the diverse presentation requirements of the art works on the other.

Some artists created art works especially for the Gallery of Contemporary Art, which they then installed in situ: Richard Serra’s heavy-weight Lead-Splashing, Jannis Kounellis’ gunnysacks from the Port of Hamburg, stacked and filled with stone, Ilya Kabakov’s sickroom, Ian Hamilton Finlay’s text installation on the plateau between the Gallery of Contemporary Art and the original building of the Kunsthalle, or Jenny Holzer’s LED-track, leading from the Gallery of Contemporary Art to the original building of the Kunsthalle, and thus providing a link between the two. This group of works, specific to their respective location, is continuously extended, most recently by a piece by Monika Sosnowska, who installed a maze of rooms in one of the utility rooms.

These permanently displayed works are presented in the context of larger groups of works by renowned artists, such as Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz and Sigmar Polke or Franz Erhard Walther, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Rosemarie Trockel and Andreas Slominski. Furthermore the most relevant aspects of the multi-facetted movements and tendencies of the most recent decades are represented. Thus a connection of individual approach and time-specific elements can be established: Andy Warhol or David Hockney in relation to Pop Art, Robert Morris, Carl Andre or Ulrich Rückriem in conjunction with a direct expression determined by material, Hanne Darboven as a central representative of Conceptual Art, Bruce Nauman as reference point for young American art.

Prominent and characteristic emphases of the collection held by the Gallery of Contemporary Art are constituted by painting from the sixties, the art of the Spurensucher und Feldforscher (Trackers and Fieldworkers) – from Nikolaus Lang to Sophie Calle and The Atlas Group –, German sculpture and marquettes of the late eighties and nineties (Thomas Schütte, Reinhard Mucha, Stephan Huber, Wiebke Siem, Olaf Metzel) as well as German photography by Becher-students, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer. In addition the Hamburger Kunsthalle holds a constantly growing, substantial collection of videos and new media.

The continuous and sustained compilation and extension of the collection is an essential purpose – and a great challenge, especially with regards to the shrinking public funds. Private supporters and donators have therefore become an indispensable factor of acquisition-politics. The collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle is supplemented with permanent loans granted by the Stiftung zur Förderung der Hamburgischen Kunstsammlungen (Foundation for the Support of Hamburg Art Collections) and private sources – American and German art from the Collection Scharpff, Conceptual Art from the Collection Sohst and Minimal Art from the Collection Lafrenz.

The aspiration is to present contemporary art in a lively and versatile display. Just as contemporary art is constantly changing, its presentation should remain in flux. This is the reason for the three “reconstructions” since the opening of the Gallery of Contemporary Art. These „reconstructions“ allowed to give the collection a different structure and thus highlight different emphases; new works were added and already known works were placed in a new context. Since 2003, the exhibition-series gegenwärtig: focuses on a particular collection-immanent theme. körpernah/physically close (2003), Feldforschung/Fieldwork (2003), Selbst, inszeniertMise en Scene of the Self (2004/05) and Geschichtenerzähler/Storytellers (2005) exemplify this approach.

In addition to monographic exhibitions about artists such as Bruce Nauman (1998), Rosemarie Trockel (1998), Andy Warhol (1999), Shirin Neshat (2001), Stephan von Huene (2003), Mona Hatoum (2004) and Francis Bacon in October 2005, thematic group-exhibitions form a fixed part of the exhibition programme. Hypermental. Wahnhafte Wirklichkeit 1950-2000/Hypermental: Delusional Reality (2001), Monets Vermächtnis. Serie – Ordnung und Obsession/Monets Legacy: Seriality – Order and Obsession (2001/02), Heißkalt. Aktuelle Malerei aus der Sammlung Scharpff/Hotcold: Current Painting from teh Collection Scharpff (2003/04) and in September 2005 Rückkehr ins All/Return to Space belong to this category.

The series Reden über Kunst/Talks About Art, to which pre-eminent artists and protagonists of the art world contributed to talk about their work since 1996, presents an exceptional aspect of the programme. Among others Ilya Kabakov, Markus Lüpertz, Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen, Thomas Struth, Nan Goldin, Jürgen Klauke, Jeff Koons, Jane & Louise Wilson, Thomas Schütte, Carl Andre and Lawrence Weiner spoke on these occasions.

Christoph Heinrich

Galerie der Gegenwart

Richard Serra
Measurements of Time, 1996

Jenny Holzer
Ceiling Snake, 1996

Francis Bacon
Studie zu einem Bildnis, 1953

Pedro Cabrita Reis (*1956)
Links: Unframed #3, 2008
Rechts: L.T., 2002

Thomas Struth, Musée du Louvre 4, 1989, Hamburger Kunsthalle Kupferstichkabinett, Photo: Hamburger Kunsthalle/bpk, Elke Walford