Kandinsky’s works constitute the heart of the New York
collection. The father of non-objective painting was held in high esteem
by both Guggenheim and Rebay; over 100 works of his were already part of
the inventory of the Museum
of Non-Objective Painting, the Guggenheim’s predecessor.
Arp and Moholy-Nagy
also helped form the core of the Guggenheim Collection, which was
continuously expanded following the death of its founder.
Alberto
Giacometti, The Nose, 1947,
©VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
A legacy of Katherine
Dreier, a close friend to Marcel
Duchamp, added important works by Constantin
Brancusi and Kurt
Schwitters. The French Impressionists and German Expressionists
belonging to the art dealers Justin
K. Thannhauser and Walter
Nierendorf further reinforced the collection’s European character. Peggy
Guggenheim, Solomon’s highly independent niece, donated important
Surrealist works and paintings by American artists such as Jackson
Pollock, whose career she’d launched as a gallery dealer. Finally,
when the collection of Giuseppe
Panza di Biumo was purchased in 1999, major works of Minimal Art
entered foundation property as well.
Mark
Rothko, Untitled,1949,
©Kate
Rothko-Prizel & Christopher Rothko / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
From
the collection of galerist Justin Thannhauser:
Picassos
Wife with Yellow Hair, December 1931,
©Succession
Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
Justin
Thannhauser, who emigrated to New York after fleeing from Berlin, provided
the Guggenheim with, among other things, 32 works by Picasso,
whose Woman with Yellow Hair from 1931 can be seen in Bonn –
perhaps one of the most beautiful paintings of the exhibition. The young
woman’s head is resting on her arms, while her face appears in profile.
The sleeping figure is lying gracefully on a striped sofa – a poetic
homage to his muse, Marie-Thérèse
Walter.
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Andy Warhol, Self Portrait,1986,
©Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2005
Roy
Lichtenstein’s Pop-Art icon Grrrrrrrrrrr!! entered the
collection as a gift from the artist: the large dog is growling
menacingly, eyeing the viewer as though it were about to attack him. And Andy
Warhol is present in Bonn as well – with a monumental self-portrait
measuring around 10 by 10 feet in size painted in 1986, one year before he
died. Warhol’s ghostly head glows greenish before a pitch-black
background. The exhibition section in the Art and Exhibition Hall ends
with the Minimalist sculptures of Richard Serra and Robert
Morris.
Work
commissioned by Deutsche Guggenheim:
Rachel
Whiteread, Untitled (Cellar), 2001,
©The
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
The
exhibition’s course continues on the ground floor of the neighboring Art
Museum. Under the heading Guggenheim Contemporary, works purchased
after 1990 can be seen in the 15,000 square feet of space there. Matthew
Barney, Douglas
Gordon, Roni Horn,
and Kara
Walker – the selection demonstrates the foundation’s continuing
commitment to contemporary positions. Rachel
Whiteread’s sculptures, made in 2001 for the Deutsche Guggenheim
Berlin, are particularly impressive. Her plaster cast of a stairwell
turned on its side possesses an unnerving force. The whitish block not
only quotes the anonymous utilitarian building it originates from, but
also the monumental sculptures of sixties Minimalism.
Frank
O. Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao,
Photo:
David Heald, © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
But
it’s not only in regards to art that the Guggenheim Foundation is always
up to date. Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic structure on New York’s Fifth
Avenue already dispensed with every existing convention in museum
architecture. And the UFO covered in titanium sheathing that Frank
Gehry built for the Spanish branch in Bilbao is considered to be one
of the most innovative museum buildings of the past years. The
international architectural elite are active for the institution; this can
be seen in the designs and building sculptures by Zaha
Hadid, Coop
Himmelb(l)au, and Rem
Koolhaas, presented in the Atrium of the Art and Exhibition Hall in an
exhibition all their own. The Guggenheim Architecture demonstrates
that the Foundation’s architectural projects are every bit as visionary as
the art they contain.
The Guggenheim Collection
July 21, 2006 – January 7, 2007
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany
Bonn Art Museum
The Guggenheim Architecture
August 25, 2006 – November 12, 2006
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany
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