Heiner Bastian
Press release from 03/26/2007
Heiner Bastian has announced in the magazine Monopol that he is resigning as curator of the Erich Marx Collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, comments:
"As early as October 2004, the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, together with the Director General of the National Museums in Berlin, reached an amicable agreement with him and Erich Marx, in which the independence of the art-historical orientation is guaranteed by the management and the curators of the Hamburger Bahnhof appointed by the National Museums. Heiner Bastian was still involved in a programme advisory board, whose spokesman is the director of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Eugen Blume. Obviously, Heiner Bastian took this decision as a setback and has not overcome it. Injured vanity is a bad counsellor.
His tone towards those responsible for the Nationalgalerie and Hamburger Bahnhof is hurtful, and his proposals on personnel policy are presumptuous. Future personnel decisions will be made by the committees of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation on their own independent authority. Overconfidence is also a bad counsellor.
The timing of his action may be influenced by the fact that Bastian will soon be opening his own gallery opposite the Museum Island.
The Hamburger Bahnhof is not an easy undertaking, so all the more reason to focus all attention on it with a willingness to deal with it responsibly."