Parzinger on the approval of the budget for the remodelling of the Gemäldegalerie
Press release from 06/12/2012
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, explains: "I am delighted with the decision of the Bundestag to include the remodelling of the Gemäldegalerie in the supplementary budget for 2012 and would like to thank Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann for his efforts. This is the decisive breakthrough for a forward-looking reorganisation of the Berlin art collections. The magnificent Pietzsch Collection will be given an outstanding location in the context of a 20th century gallery at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. And the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz will thus be expanded by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation into a forum for modern art. It is a wonderful step towards raising Berlin's profile internationally as a city of modernism."
The Budget Committee of the German Bundestag today approved a supplementary budget for 2012, which includes €10 million for the remodelling of the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz in order to create a gallery of 20th century art that will also house the Pietzsch couple's collection. Their collection of Surrealist works was shown in a special exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in 2009/10 to great acclaim (almost 200,000 visitors). It was donated to the state of Berlin on the condition that the collection be presented appropriately by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The works from the Picture Gallery, on the other hand, are to be moved to the Museum Island and presented together with the sculptures from the respective eras. At the same time, the Foundation is working hard to ensure that a new gallery building opposite the Bode Museum will provide a stage for the Old Masters and that the Museum Island will be completed as a centre for European art and culture up to the 19th century.