calendario eventi  :: 

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18/3/2005

Two exhibitions

MMK - Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt

What's New, Pussycat?

The exhibition "What's New, Pussycat?" focuses on the countless new acquisitions and pieces gifted us over the last three years as well as main works from the former private collection of Karl Stroher - the latter forms the backbone of the MMK's unique collection.

This concentrated focus takes the MMK's exploration of the "idea of a museum" a logical step forwards. The permanent collection forms the mainstay of the museum and works on loan for a specific period are no substitute for it. A public collection must be permanent, as any critical inquiry into artworks is a long-term affair. Only if we can repeatedly scrutinize the same works, and only if we can repeatedly look at them from a new point of view and interpret them from a new vantage-point, will we avoid finding hasty answers to profound questions, will we get closer to a real understanding of the works. Which is why it is so indispensable to ensure the permanent presence of works that span the past and present, or even bridge generations. "What's New, Pussycat?" thus takes a clear stance on the "interaction" of public and private property in museums today. The creative advancement of a contemporary art collection for Frankfurt has been made possible by a unique partnership model with various corporations and the City of Frankfurt. This model is linked to a forward-looking commitment to cultural policy in light of the Museum's mission in society. Moreover, countless artists, donators and the Friends of the Museum are emphatically supporting the MMK in its fundamental tasks.

Supported by: Partner des Museums fur Moderne Kunst


Frankfurt Salon - Anton Henning

Taking as his title "Frankfurt Salon", painter Anton Henning, born in Berlin in 1964, is transforming a large MMK hall into an elegant reading room and communicative hub. The "decorative" ambience he has created is in keeping with the hall's new function as a salon and forms an atmospheric backdrop for his paintings. Henning proceeds with playful earnest here, working both subversively and with irony: he cuts across the history of painting with Seven Mile Boots; the choice of art shifts explosively from one system of painterly references to another.

Anton Henning's pictorial cosmos is non-exclusive. His painterly oeuvre combines excessively figurative images with decidedly abstract works. Here, landscapes and still lives, pin-up girls and beach scenes all combine to form passionate groups of images. Be it Gustave Courbet's "L'Origine du Monde" concealed behind a still life of flowers, or Mondrian greeting us from a distance, be it the question of whether the best use for Berlin's Schlossplatz and its surroundings can be considered answered, or the subject of outdoor nudism utilized to intimate typically "German Painting" - in each instance, Anton Henning quite as a matter of course combines a conceptual outlook with his manifest joy in the act of painting to create pictures that defy all classification. At the same time, Henning goes further than almost all his contemporaries in insisting on the topicality of painting today.

Supported by: Dornbracht Installations Projects

Museum fur Moderne Kunst
Domstrasse 10, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Opening hours: Tues.-Sun. 10 am to 5 pm

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