On the Edge
comtemporary art from the Daimler Art Collection -
a comprehensive portrait of the collection
The Detroit Institute of Arts
October 29, 2003 - January 18, 2004
Introduction
The Daimler Art Collection, one of the major German company art collections, is, for the first time, presenting an extensive body of works at The Detroit Institute for the Arts beginning October 2003, after a first venue in the Museum für Neue Kunst/ZKM (Center for Contemporary Art and Media Technology) Karlsruhe and further venues in South Africa
The exhibition shows painting, sculpture, photography and video art thematically, thus cutting across generations and classifications. The show centres around recent acquisitions.
Exhibition view, from left.: Michael Zahn; Untitled (Menu with Sub-Menu), 2002 Eckhard Schene; Trophy III/69, 1969 Franz Erhard Walther; Block Blau, 1993Daniel Buren; A dance with a square, N° 47C, 1989 Robert Ryman; Untitled, 1969
>more exhibition viewsThe Daimler Art Collection reflects the most important developments in 20th century abstract art, starting with prestigious groups of work from the Concrete and Constructive Art, Minimal Art and Concept Art movements, then moving on to the most recent international art trends.
Josef Albers
Change Directions; 1942
60 x 74,5 cm
Classical Modern Art and ZERO
The group of Classical Modern works in the Daimler Art Collection, started in 1977 by the purchase of a painting by Willi Baumeister in 1977, includes mainly painting, but also sculpture, wall objects and graphics. They present an image of the development of art to the 1960s, relating mainly to South-West Germany. ›Zero‹ and ›Neue Tendenzen‹ (New Tendencies) as European movements connected to international Minimalism are represented in the Daimler Art Collection by names like Enrico Castellani, Getulio Alviani, Jan Henderikse, Almir Mavignier, Francois Morellet, Jan Schoonhoven and Klaus Staudt.
Minimalism in Europe and America
The major abstract movements from the 50s to the 70s are characterized by going back to the origins of a concrete, constructive and minimalist art, though with different stresses in Europe and America. Connections between European structural-constructive painting with American tendencies - Minimal Art, Color Field Painting. Hard Edge, Op Art - are clearly shown in the collection in works by Adolf Fleischmann, Hartmut Böhm, Andreas Brandt, Ulrich Erben, Gottfried Honegger, Günther Fruhtrunk, Karl Gerstner, Manfred Mohr, Anton Stankowski.
One point of reference for reductionist painting in the USA is a picture painted by Robert Ryman from 1969. In parallel with this focal point that has established itself the collection has addressed predecessors - practically unknown in Europe - of American Minimalist painting with acquisitions of work by artists including Jo Baer, Gene Davis, John McLaughlin, David Novros, Karl Benjamin, Ilya Bolotowsky and Frederick Hammersley, Oli Sihvonen.
Contemporary Art
The Daimler Art Collection holds prestigious high-calibre works by figures involved in major artistic trends and groupings within the 20th century's abstract movements. The aim in the field of contemporary art is on the one hand to make it possible to look at one focal point of the collection - the reduced, constructive-concrete and minimalist directions in contemporary art - and to show how it operated in distinct areas and continues to make an impact in the present.
Ugo Rondinone
Nr. 214 VIERUNDZWANZIGSTERJULIZWEITAUSEND; 2000
60'
Simone Westerwinter
from: 60 Name water-colors, 2001
15' x 22'
The connection from the non-representational positions of post-war Modernism to the multi-media field of contemporary art in the Daimler Art Collection is made largely by a group of artists born around 1930/45: Charlotte Posenenske, Nam June Paik, Walter de Maria, Ulrich Rückriem, Auke de Vries, Daniel Buren, Roman Signer, Franz Erhard Walther, Imi Knoebel, Hanne Darboven, Olivier Mosset, Giulio Paolini, Peter Roehr and Joseph Kosuth. They all work on a new definition of the concept of the work, go against the traditional genre boandaries, view the viewers' mental and/or physical activity as part of the work process and assertThe work of artists like John M Armleder, Gerwald Rockenschaub or Peter Halley draws on the fund of position-definitions and rejections, concepts and polemics, attempts to eradicate and to rescue the concept of the picture in the 20th century.