Collection Presentation

MIX & MATCH

Rediscovering the Collection

Pinakothek der Moderne | Art
15.09.2022 — 31.12.2025
Rooms 1-17, 27-33, 35

Marking the 20th anniversary of the Pinakothek der Moderne, the curators of the Sammlung Moderne Kunst have joined heads in rehanging the collection, in a new display titled MIX & MATCH. Characterised by a spirit of curiosity and experimentation, the new hang invites visitors to rediscover the collection in themed galleries and unconventional juxtapositions that transcend epochs, styles, and media.

Key works of painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation art, and printmaking serve as the springboard into topics of vital relevance to 21st-century life, such as community, migration, work, the environment, and conflict and violence. The new hang also illuminates genres and subjects steeped in an art-historical tradition – like the nude, the self-portrait, or the forest, as well as tropes like the grotesque, the spiritual, or the irrational.

The new collection presentation features some 350 works and series spanning 120 years of art history, on view in 25 galleries. True to the idea of mixing and matching, the works were selected as snapshots of specific moments in recent history with the potential to shed light on current urgent debates, offering visionary and unexpected perspectives on the past and the imminent future.

Among the artists of the anniversary year are:
Herbert Achternbusch, Bas Jan Ader, Etel Adnan, Siegfried Anzinger, Ida Applebroog, Joannis Avramidis, Monika Baer, Lewis Baltz, Georg Baselitz, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Max Beckmann, Laurenz Berges, Benjamin Bergmann, Joseph Beuys, Aenne Biermann, Karl Blossfeldt, Alighiero Boetti, André Butzer, Heinrich Campendonck, Lovis Corinth, David Claerbout, Robert Delaunay, Rineke Dijkstra, Peter Doig, César Domela, Carroll Dunham, Tracey Emin, Dan Flavin, Max Ernst, Omer Fast, Lee Friedlander, Otto Freundlich, Franz Gertsch, Rupprecht Geiger, Carl Grossberg, Katharina Grosse, Andreas Gursky, Hans Hartung, Haubitz + Zoche, Florence Henri, Jenny Holzer, Axel Hütte, Alexej Jawlensky, Asger Jorn, Wassily Kandinsky, On Kawara, Mike Kelley, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Jochen Klein, Oskar Kokoschka, Helmut Kolle, Käthe Kollwitz, Germaine Krull, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Bo Christian Larsson, Maria Lassnig, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Eva Leitolf, Zoe Leonard, Carl Lohse, August Macke, René Magritte, Mark Manders, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, Jonathan Meese, Stephan Melzl, Olaf Metzel, Giorgio Morandi, Otto Mueller, Nicholas Nixon, Henrik Olesen, Martin Parr, Beate Passow, A. R. Penck, Paul Pfeiffer, Pablo Picasso, Adrian Piper, Sigmar Polke, Carl Theodor Protzen, Neo Rauch, Franz Radziwill, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Germaine Richier, Gerhard Richter, August Sander, Christian Schad, Josef Scharl, Oskar Schlemmer, Michael Schmidt, Bernard Schulze, George Segal, Friedrich Seidenstücker, Tschabalala Self, Gino Severini, Renée Sintenis, Thomas Steffl, Norbert Tadeusz, Rosemarie Trockel, Luc Tuymans, Andy Warhol, Jeff Wall, Fritz Winter, Amelie von Wulffen, Stefanie Zoche and many more

The exhibition was made possible by numerous "room sponsorships". Sincere thanks go to them for their generous support.

Sponsored by: Allianz; Atoss Software AG; Karin und Roland Berger; Deutsche Invest Capital Partners; DJE Kapital AG; goetzpartners, Herbert Schuchardt Stiftung; International Patrons of the Pinakothek e.V.; Martina und Florian Kurz; PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V.; Ragaller Gruppe Deutschland; Dr. Helmut Röschinger; Theo Wormland Stiftung; VHV Stiftung; Adelhaid Winterstein; Written Art Collection

Media partners:
ARTE, egoFM, Süddeutsche Zeitung

#PinaMixAndMatch 

CURATOR'S STATEMENTS

Oliver Kase, Chief Curator of Modern Art / Director of Collections Pinakothek der Moderne / Sammlung Moderne Kunst:

The form of exhibition previously customary for masterpieces from the collection of Modernism, generally celebrated as collection highlights in over a dozen rooms of the Pinakothek der Moderne, is now giving way to an experimental dialogue with other media and epochs from a twenty-first-century perspective. I hope and anticipate that breaking down these barriers will spark surprise, curiosity, and passion among our visitors, and inspire a readiness to embrace reflection and criticism. The method of presentation is more akin to the current multimedia-driven reception habits of our era than room after room of paintings in predictable sequence could ever be.

Simone Förster, Chief Curator Stiftung Ann und Jürgen Wilde:

Since the 1960s, collectors and gallerists Ann and Jürgen Wilde have dedicated their work and commitment to achieving the recognition of photography as art. This was one of the factors resulting in the affiliation of their foundation to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in 2010. The involvement of the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation in the rehanging of the Sammlung Moderne Kunst, an experiment crossing genres and epochs, is the fulfillment of a longstanding vision. I look forward to photography taking its place as a further voice in the many-languaged dialogue between the artworks. In some spaces it may merely interpose a quiet comment, in others toss a loud thesis into the debate of the arts.

Tatjana Schaefer, Assistant curator for Art since 1945, focus on American art:

Unlike pictorial works, which throw open a window onto an illusory space, works of minimal art are located in the same physical space as their viewers. This discrepancy engenders a challenge when minimal art is combined with works based on a different method of perception. However, the spatial experience of minimal art is neither limited nor impeded thereby. Quite the opposite, in fact; the works of minimal art placed at various points throughout the exhibition help spectators to repeatedly ground themselves in the here and now, allowing them to consciously move between immersion in visual worlds and the realization of their own presence within the museum space.

Bernhart Schwenk, Chief Curator of Contemporary Art:

Every epoch reflects the present in its art. For one thing, every work was contemporary at the time of its creation; for another, even older art cannot be understood from any other perspective than that of our own age. In my view, the embrace of that now in every work of art is the great attraction of a non-chronological and transgenerational exhibition drawn from our collection. Furthermore, there are connecting themes which have always held unbroken significance for artists, irrespective of the historical, social, or political situation of the time, and which will continue to do so. Art always strives to render conflicts tangible, establish balance, or find metaphors for existential questions, albeit in a different way in each different age.

Franziska Kunze, Chief Curator of Photography and Time-Based Media:

It is naturally a challenge to plan the conservationally necessary changes to photographic works at specific scheduled intervals, constantly reevaluating the focal theme of the room by making powerful choices, yet always mindful of the adjacent works. At the same time, I regard this as a great opportunity. Museums can only ever display an average of three percent of the works they own; visitors see only the tip of the iceberg while countless more works lie slumbering in the storages. Here I can draw on unlimited resources, activate ever-varying aspects of our inventory, and rediscover my own collection area through the eyes of the other curators during our joint planning.

Judith Csiki, Curator Written Art Collection:

As a public art collection, we are inevitably involved in shaping the canon of a particular epoch. This canon formation necessarily generates weightings in favor of specific artists, artistic movements, media, and cultural groups on the one hand and desiderata on the other. The Sammlung Moderne Kunst is dominated by a focus on outstanding and internationally known Western artists; over the past several years this focus has been broadened by the acquisition of works from non-Western cultures, in addition to a major contribution made by a partnership with the Written Art Collection. The focal theme of the Written Art Collection, which takes in calligraphic, gestural and informal art, parallels the museum’s inventory in diverse ways and thus constantly opens up new perspectives on the individual categories of the collection.

The curators of the Sammlung Moderne Kunst at the Pinakothek der Moderne (from left to right): Franziska Kunze, Tatjana Schäfer, Oliver Kase, Judith Csiki, Bernhart Schwenk and Simone Förster (Photo: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Elisabeth Greil)

Tour

Pinakothek der Moderne I 1.st Floor I Roomtitles MIX & MATCH