Museum für Moderne Kunst

Museum für Moderne Kunst, main entrance

The Museum für Moderne Kunst (English: Museum of Modern Art), or short MMK, in Frankfurt, Germany, was founded in 1981. The museum was designed by the Viennese architect Hans Hollein. Because of its triangular shape, it is called "piece of cake".

History

Northern facade of the museum
Museum interior
Foyer

The newest of Frankfurt’s museums was founded in 1981.[1] In 1983, Hollein won the competition for the Museum für Moderne Kunst; three years earlier, his proposal for the city's Museum für angewandte Kunst had finished a close second behind Richard Meier's prize-winning design. The ground-breaking was delayed until 1987, and the new museum was eventually built at a cost of about $38 million.[2] It opened in 1991.

The MMK Zollamt is a satellite exhibition site that belongs to the MMK and is located in a building directly opposite the museum that once was home to the City of Frankfurt's Main Customs Office. The building has been completely modernized and artistic positions by younger artists or “unknowns” have been presented here regularly since 2007.

Collection

The core of the museum is the legacy of German collector Karl Ströher with some 65 works of Pop art and Minimalism. The manufacturer Ströher had originally bequeathed to his native city of Darmstadt on condition that a museum be built to house them. When funds for the project were not approved, Ströher's heirs sold the choice ensemble to Frankfurt.[3] Major artists since the 1950s from the Ströher Collection displayed, including Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and George Segal, with his Jazz Combo. Between 1981 and 1987, the museum's co-founder Peter Iden expanded the collection by adding works from the seventies and eighties.[4] Later parts of the collection have been amassed by the museum's first director, Jean-Christophe Ammann.[5] In 2006 the Museum für Moderne Kunst, along with the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein and the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, acquired the private collection of Cologne art dealer Rolf Ricke, comprising works by Richard Artschwager, Bill Bollinger, Donald Judd, Gary Kuehn, und Steven Parrino. Today, the permanent collection includes over 4,500 works of international art, ranging from the 1960s to the present.[6]

Exhibitions

The museum and its director, Susanne Gaensheimer, were commissioned to curate the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and 2013.[7]

Architecture

Hollein molded a building to the three-sided space, so that the large rooms at the narrow end are wedge-shaped, producing 4,000 square meters (43,000 square feet) of exhibition space.[8]

Literature

References

  1. ↑ MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt/Main.
  2. ↑ David Galloway (July 6, 1991), Museum à la Mode in Frankfurt International Herald Tribune.
  3. ↑ David Galloway (July 6, 1991), Museum à la Mode in Frankfurt International Herald Tribune.
  4. ↑ Rolf Lauter (ed.): Kunst in Frankfurt. das Museum für Moderne Kunst und die Sammlung Ströher - Zur Geschichte einer Privatsammlung, cat. (December 5, 1994- January 8, 1995, Frankfurt am Main, o.J. p.15
  5. ↑ Michael Kimmelman (August 18, 1991), Avoiding the Clean-White-Box Syndrome New York Times.
  6. ↑ MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt/Main.
  7. ↑ Alexander Forbes (May 8, 2012), Susanne Gaensheimer to Curate German Pavilion at 2013 Venice Biennale ARTINFO.
  8. ↑ David Galloway (July 6, 1991), Museum à la Mode in Frankfurt International Herald Tribune.

Coordinates: 50°06′42″N 08°41′05″E / 50.11167°N 8.68472°E / 50.11167; 8.68472

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