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The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz and Contemporary Art Limited have agreed that the loan agreement concluded in 2003 for the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, which is presented by the Nationalgalerie at the Hamburger Bahnhof location, will expire on 30 September 2021. This is the result of a joint statement by Contemporary Art Limited and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is attached to this press release.

SPK President Hermann Parzinger said: "I very much regret that we will not be able to continue our collaboration with Friedrich Christian Flick. The SPK and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin owe him a great debt of gratitude, as we can look back on an extremely fruitful collaboration over the past 17 years. The Hamburger Bahnhof has also developed into an internationally recognised hotspot for contemporary art thanks to the interplay between the outstanding Flick Collection and the collection of the Nationalgalerie. This location will be consistently developed further in the coming years."

The Director General of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Michael Eissenhauer, added: "Since September 2004, Friedrich Christian Flick's collection has been on loan to the Rieck-Hallen next to the Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie. The collector had financed the renovation of the halls for the presentation of his collection. On 21 September 2004, the first exhibition was opened in a glittering and politically high-profile manner. It was a real sensation when the collector Friedrich Christian Flick gave the Nationalgalerie a total of 268 major works of contemporary art in two generous donations in 2008 and 2014. These include outstanding works by international artists such as Absalon, David Claerbout, Stan Douglas, Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Candida Höfer, Paul McCarthy, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist, Anri Sala, Thomas Schütte, Diana Thater and Franz West. The Nationalgalerie's collection now includes entire groups of works by these artists. In addition, central works and groups of works by Nathalie Djurberg, Brian O'Doherty, Peter Fischli / David Weiss, Katharina Fritsch, Raoul de Keyser, Manfred Pernice, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth and others have been added to the collection. These generous gestures are unforgotten and will remain with the Nationalgalerie and thus Berlin!"

The Director of the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Udo Kittelmann, said: "The news that the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, one of the world's most outstanding international collections of contemporary art, is leaving Berlin is not yet foreseeable in its full extent. It is a great pain for all the staff of the Nationalgalerie and for me that we feel about this."

After the inaugural exhibition in 2004, which occupied the entire exhibition space of the Hamburger Bahnhof and the Rieckhallen, the curators of the Nationalgalerie put together one to three exhibitions a year with works from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection and published them in accompanying catalogues. These included exhibitions on Wolfgang Tillmans, Bruce Nauman, Martin Kippenberger and Roman Signer as well as extensive thematic presentations on art since the 1960s ("Almost Nothing" 2005, "Beyond Cinema" 2006, "There is never a stop and never a finish" 2007, "I can't cut off an ear every day" 2008, "Architektonika" 2011, "Moving is in every direction" 2017, "Local Histories" 2018). Works from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection have also been integrated into other exhibitions at the Hamburger Bahnhof and the Neue Nationalgalerie ("Die Kunst ist super!" 2009, "Ausweitung der Kampfzone" 2013). In 2015, some of Friedrich Christian Flick's donations to the Nationalgalerie were presented in a show entitled "A Few Free Years" in the main hall and the Rieckhallen of Hamburger Bahnhof.

The collection presentation "Magical Soup" with works of media art from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, among others, is in preparation for summer 2020, as is a publication.

Hermann Parzinger referred to the well-known, difficult situation of the so-called Rieck Halls as part of the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin. The SPK has used the Rieck Halls from the beginning until today on the basis of a rental agreement, first with Vivico and later with CA Immobilien Anlagen AG ("CA Immo"). This rental agreement ends on 30 September 2021. "Since we know that the continued existence of the Rieck-Hallen is not secured beyond the end of 2021, we have been in good talks with CA Immo, the federal government and the state of Berlin in order to preserve and stabilise the exhibition location around the Hamburger Bahnhof for contemporary art. Compensating for the loss of the Rieck Halls as an exhibition space is the mutually agreed goal of all parties involved in the talks. The area around the Hamburger Bahnhof is to remain an attractive neighbourhood for contemporary art. art. We also want to create additional space for this in the future."

The Director General of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin spoke in favour of continuing the cooperation with the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection in a different form: "Precisely because the collaboration with this collector has been so exceptionally good and successful, I hope that this is not a farewell forever. We have agreed to remain in contact. The Nationalgalerie is always open to works from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection at its various locations," says MichaelEissenhauer.

Further links

• Joint statement on the end of the agreed contract period for the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection in Berlin in September 2021
• Press images