The ''Haus der Kunst'' (, ''House of Art'') is a non-collecting modern and contemporary
art museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...
in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
. It is located at
Prinzregentenstraße 1 at the southern edge of the
Englischer Garten
The ''Englischer Garten'' (, ''English Garden'') is a large public park in the centre of Munich, Bavaria, stretching from the city centre to the northeastern city limits. It was created in 1789 by Sir Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814), later Coun ...
, Munich's largest park.
History
Nazi Germany
The building was constructed from 1933 to 1937 following plans of
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
Paul Ludwig Troost as
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
's first monumental structure of
Nazi architecture and as
Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...
. The museum, then called ''Haus der Deutschen Kunst'' ("House of German Art"), was opened on 18 July 1937 as a showcase for what the Nazi Party regarded as
Germany's finest art, with celebrations including a historical pageant and a military parade. The inaugural exhibition was the ''
Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung'' ("Great German Art Exhibition"), which was intended as an edifying contrast to the condemned modern art on display in the concurrent
Degenerate Art Exhibition.
On 15 and 16 July 1939, the ''Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung'' inside the ''Haus der Deutschen Kunst'' was complemented by the monumental ''Tag der Deutschen Kunst'' celebration of "2,000 years of Germanic culture" where luxuriously draped floats (one of them carrying a 5 meter tall golden Nazi ''
Reichsadler'') and thousands of actors in historical costumes paraded down Prinzregentenstraße for hours in the presence of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
,
Hermann Göring,
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...
,
Heinrich Himmler,
Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, h ...
,
Robert Ley,
Reinhard Heydrich, and many other high-ranking Nazis, with minor events taking place in the ''Englischer Garten'' nearby.
The 1939 ''Tag der Deutschen Kunst'' was documented by a group of hobby cinematographers on 16 mm
Kodachrome color movie. The resulting 30-minute film is still pristine today due to Kodachrome's unusual archival properties, and is available in a variety of editions on VHS and DVD, such as ''Farben 1939 - Tag der Deutschen Kunst in München''.
Post-war
After the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the museum building was first used by the
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
occupation forces as an officers'
mess
The mess (also called a mess deck aboard ships) is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and (in some cases) live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the o ...
; in that time, the building came to be known as the "P1", a shortening of its street address. The building's original purpose can still be seen in such guises as the swastika-motif mosaics in the ceiling panels of its front portico.
Beginning in 1946, the museum rooms, now partitioned into several smaller exhibition areas, started to be used as temporary exhibition space for trade shows and visiting art exhibitions. Some parts of the museum were also used to showcase works from those of Munich's art galleries that had been destroyed during the war. The original steps at the building's entrance were removed to make way for a road tunnel, which opened in 1972.
In 2002, the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Arts moved into the
Pinakothek der Moderne
The Pinakothek der Moderne (, ''Pinakothek of the Modern'') is a modern art museum, situated in central Munich's '' Kunstareal''. Locals sometimes refer to it as the ''Dritte'' ("third") ''Pinakothek'' after the Old and New. It is one of the world' ...
. Today, while housing no permanent art exhibition of its own, the museum is still used as a showcase venue for temporary exhibitions and traveling exhibitions, including on
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
, ''
Zeit der Staufer'',
Gilbert and George
Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom), are two artists who work together as the collaborative art d ...
(2007),
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky (born 15 January 1955) is a German photographer and professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany.
He is known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs, often using a high point of view. His works ...
(2007),
Anish Kapoor (2007),
Ai Weiwei (2009),
Ellsworth Kelly (2011),
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the ...
(2014),
Louise Bourgeois (2015), and
Frank Bowling (2017). A 2012 joint venture with the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...
, ''Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974'' was the first major museum survey of
land art
Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
worldwide. The museum also drew acclaim for ''Postwar: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-1965'' in 2016, an effort to tell a global narrative of art in the two decades after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. A 2019 retrospective of the Ghanaian sculptor
El Anatsui became the museum’s best-attended show in 10 years.
In 2013, London-based architect
David Chipperfield
Sir David Alan Chipperfield, (born 18 December 1953) is an English architect. He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985.
His major works include the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (1989–1998); the Museu ...
was commissioned to submit plans for refurbishing Haus der Kunst; the plans were eventually presented to the public in 2016. For approximately 60 million euros, the planned renovation aims to create space for cinema, performance and musical events. Chipperfield also proposed to open up blocked skylights to allow daylight into the building.
After artistic director
Okwui Enwezor
Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the '' ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...
’s departure for health reasons in 2018, Haus der Kunst appointed an expert commission to oversee programming and strategy between 2019 and 2020. The commission was led by
Bice Curiger
Beatrice "Bice" Curiger (born 1948 in Zurich, Switzerland) is a Swiss art historian, curator, critic and publisher who has been the Artistic Director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles since 2013. In 2011 she became only the third woman to c ...
and also included
Achim Hochdörfer of the
Museum Brandhorst
The Brandhorst Museum was opened in Munich on 21 May 2009. It displays about 200 exhibits from collection of modern art of the heirs of the Henkel trust Udo and Anette Brandhorst. In 2009 the Brandhorst Collection comprises more than 700 works.
...
and the collector
Ingvild Goetz. In 2019, a selection committee selected Andrea Lissoni as new artistic director; the committee was chaired by
Nina Zimmer
Nina Zimmer (born 1973) is a German art historian who is director of the Zentrum Paul Klee and the Museum of Fine Arts Bern.
Early life
Zimmer was born in 1973. She studied art history, Romance languages and media studies in Bordeaux, Göttinge ...
and included
Daniel Birnbaum
Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art curator and an art critic. Since 2019, he has been director and curator of Acute Art in London, UK.
Education
Birnbaum studied at Stockholm University, Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and Columbia Univer ...
,
Doryun Chong,
Susanne Gaensheimer, and
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, (born 27 April 1946) is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017.
...
.
Collection
Despite being a non-collecting institution, Haus der Kunst has over the years received numerous works of art.
In 2011, Haus der Kunst forged a partnership with the private
Goetz Collection to co-curate exhibits of video art. By 2013, it was one of the beneficiaries – along with the Bavarian State Museums and the
Neues Museum
The Neues Museum (English: ''New Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1843 to 1855 by order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia in Neoclassical and Renaissance Revival styles ...
in Nuremberg – when Ingvild Goetz donated her collection of video art to the state of Bavaria and made the collection as a whole, which includes almost 5,000 works, available on permanent loan.
In 2017, Jewish artist
Mel Bochner donated his piece ''Joys of Yiddish'' (2012-15) to Haus der Kunst. Comprising a list of Yiddish words in yellow on black, it traverses the museum's façade as a reminder of the tragic disappearance of the language from German culture.
Management
Directors
* 1993–2003: Christoph Vitali
* 2003–2011:
Chris Dercon
Chris Dercon (born 1958) is a Belgian art historian, curator, and museum director born in Lier in Belgium.
As a museum director, Dercon has worked and published extensively on the future of museums, working with renowned architects Rem Koolhaas, ...
* 2011–2018:
Okwui Enwezor
Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the '' ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...
* From 2020: Andrea Lissoni
Funding
The
State of Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...
is the biggest shareholder of Haus der Kunst, and provides the museum with millions of euros every year. Since 1983, the museum building also houses the nightclub P1, Munich's famous high-society destination; the rent is one of the museum's revenue streams.
In 2011, Dercon left Haus der Kunst with capital of €1.5 million. During his time in office, Enwezor oversaw the initial fundraising for the planned €150 million renovation of Haus der Kunst. In 2018, however, Haus der Kunst cancelled an exhibition of video and performance artist
Joan Jonas, citing “a difficult financial situation stemming from management errors of the past.” It also had to postpone a
Theaster Gates
Theaster Gates (born August 28, 1973) is an American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he still lives and works.
Gates' ...
show until 2019.
Controversy
In March 2017, a controversy received international media attention when the director of the Haus der Kunst,
Okwui Enwezor
Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the '' ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...
, fired a member of the
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious ...
based on the man's religious affiliation. In Bavaria, employees are required to sign that they are not Scientologists in order to obtain employment if the institution receives financial support from the Bavarian government.
"Has Munich’s Haus der Kunst Been Infiltrated by Scientology?"
/ref>
References
External links
Opening ceremony
with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
, Heinrich Himmler, the SS and Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
, a color film (YouTube, CHRONOS-MEDIA History channel)
GDK Research
research platform for images of the Great German Art Exhibitions 1937-1944 in Munich
Complete catalogs of all the Great German Art Exhibitions 1937-1944
Museum's website
P1 nightclub website
*
*
{{Authority control
Art museums and galleries in Munich
Nazi architecture
Art museums established in 1937
1937 establishments in Germany