Friedrich Christian Flick Collection at Hamburger Bahnhof extended until 2021
Press release from 05/16/2011
The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, which has been on display at the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart since September 2004, will continue to be presented there in the coming years. The current loan relationship, which was agreed for seven years and would have ended in autumn 2011, will be extended by at least ten years. The collector Friedrich Christian Flick and the President of the SPK Hermann Parzinger recently signed a contract to this effect.
Parzinger commented: "The co-operation with Friedrich Christian Flick has already proven to be extremely fruitful in recent years. The Hamburger Bahnhof has been able to further raise its profile as a highly recognised international address for contemporary art. I am extremely pleased that we can now continue our collaboration in this form."
The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection is one of the most extensive and outstanding private collections of contemporary art in the world. Over 1,500 objects and installations from it will be on display in Berlin. Since 2004, the collection has been shown in changing exhibitions at the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart. For this purpose, the Rieck Halls directly neighbouring the Hamburger Bahnhof were converted and connected to the museum. The conversion was financed by Friedrich Christian Flick, while the SPK bears the operating costs and the costs for the exhibitions. With the increase in space and content, the museum has become one of the world's largest museums of contemporary art with an exhibition area of around 13,000 square metres, 6,000 in the newly acquired rooms alone. Numerous exhibitions have been developed from the collection in recent years, including the highly acclaimed and widely discussed first presentation of the collection in 2004, the lavish exhibition "Beyond Cinema. The Art of Projection" in 2006 and the monographic presentations dedicated to artists such as Urs Fischer in 2005, Wolfgang Tillmans in 2008 and Bruce Nauman in 2010. The presentation of the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof continues to take the form of both monographic exhibitions and thematic group exhibitions.
The collaboration also led to an extensive donation to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 2008. It comprised 166 outstanding works by 44 contemporary artists and included classical positions by Marcel Broodthaers, Nam June Paik and Dieter Roth as well as current positions by Isa Genzken, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rodney Graham, Pipilotti Rist and Jason Rhoades. One of Bruce Nauman's central works, "Room with my Soul left Out, Room That Does Not Care", was also included. The works thus permanently enrich the collection of the Nationalgalerie in the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart.