14/10/ 2017 – 08/04/2018

In good times and in bad. How to operate

Museum für Neue Kunst

How can art endure, age, change? How can the museum create and cultivate relationships with artists, as well as with private and public partners? Indeed, how can it use and enrich the history of its own collection? How can the collection be developed and extended in future? Both in good times and in bad? A new special exhibition will address these questions, focussing in particular on one influential feature of the museum as a public site: it undertakes a responsibility over a long period, promoting discourse and fostering connections and relationships.

Five artists from the contemporary collection – Monika Baer, Katharina Grosse, Svenja Kreh, Chiharu Shiota and Georg Winter – were asked for suggestions regarding which artist or which work they consider to a be fitting counterpart for their work. Not only does the Museum für Neue Kunst listen to these opinions, it also accords them a lot of weight.

What has emerged from these consultations are a number of exciting and unusual connections, dissonances and collaborations which will be on show for a period of six months.

This experimental format permits the museum to reflect upon its collection and readjust the paradigms and perspectives that attend it. At the same time, it represents an opportunity for a fresh approach to the museum's duties: collecting, conserving, researching, exhibiting and educating.

How art comes about. Who makes art. How art endures – these three aspects will be examined during the exhibition run. This unusual approach unearths interesting and illuminating facts and circumstances hidden in the artworks on display.