The Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig (GfZK) ( English: Gallery for Contemporary Art) is an exhibition center for

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

and a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

for art post 1945 in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, in a beautiful location opposite Johannapark.

History

The ''Friends of the GfZK'' is a group founded at the end of 1990 on the initiative of the Leipzig art historian Klaus Werner with the support of the German Business Cultural Group in the

Federation of German Industries The Federation of German Industries ( (BDI)) is the umbrella organization of German industry and industry-related service providers in the legal form of a registered association. It represents 39 industry associations and more than 100,000 compan ...

(BDI) and has set itself the goal of promoting national and international contemporary

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

. Initially, from 1991 onwards,

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

s were held in other people's premises. The gallery received its own exhibition space in 1998. On May 16 of that year, the gallery opened its own building in the neighborhood ''Musikviertel'' of

Leipzig-Mitte Leipzig-Mitte is one of ten boroughs (''Stadtbezirke'') of Leipzig, located in the center of the city. It includes numerous architectural monuments. Most of them are located in the subdivision "Zentrum", which is sited inside the Inner City Ring ...

, not far from the

Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig The Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) or Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig is one of the oldest art schools in Germany, dating back to 1764. The academy has four colleges specializing in fine arts, graphic design, photography and new media ar ...

(HGB) (English: Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig). The exhibition rooms are located in the former Herfurth villa of the newspaper publisher Edgar Herfurth, built in 1894 in the style of the

Gründerzeit The (; ) was a period of Economic history of Europe (1000 AD–present), European economic history in mid- and late-19th century German Empire, Germany and Austria-Hungary between Industrialization in Germany, industrialization and the great P ...

, which was redesigned by

Peter Kulka Peter Kulka (20 July 1937 – 5 February 2024) was a German architect. Biography Born in Dresden on 20 July 1937, Kulka completed a masonry apprenticeship and attended the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin alongside Selman Selmanagić. He fled fr ...

between 1996 and 1998 and expanded with a cube-shaped extension. The renovation project was awarded the ''Architekturpreis der Stadt Leipzig'' in 1999. In addition to the exhibition rooms, the villa houses a publicly accessible

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

with

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

on relevant topics (around 30,000 volumes). The former coach house belonging to the villa was supplemented with the addition of a studio house designed by Peter Kulka and today (2024) houses a music school, a bakery and the GfZK Hotel. On 28 November 2004, a new exhibition hall (GfZK-2) designed by ''as-if berlin wien'' was opened, significantly expanding the exhibition space. The functional low-rise building, which also houses the museum café, is designed flexibly thanks to a novel spatial concept with movable partitions. The cost-effective building also attracted attention in the German architectural scene and also received the ''Architekturpreis der Stadt Leipzig'' in 2005. The museum is now supported by a foundation consisting of the

Free State of Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

, the city of Leipzig and the Friends of the GfZK. One of the museum's most important donors is the

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

(including ''Schwartauer Werke'') and art patron Arend Oetker, who finances a significant part of the house's operation.

Collection and exhibitions

The spectrum of works shown at the GfZK ranges from

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufa ...

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitivity, photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. Th ...

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

s and

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

s to

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...

as well as

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

and

media art New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies. It comprises virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D ...

. The core of the museum's own collection consists of part of the collection of the BDI's cultural group of German business and was supplemented by private

donation A donation is a gift for Charity (practice), charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, Service (economics), services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donati ...

s, purchases by the Friends of the GfZK and permanent loans. Numerous temporary exhibitions and other cross-exhibition projects deal with, among other things, the social role of art and

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

, the legacy of the

GDR East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

and art from

Eastern Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 192 ...

and

Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is a geographical sub-region of Europe, consisting primarily of the region of the Balkans, as well as adjacent regions and Archipelago, archipelagos. There are overlapping and conflicting definitions of t ...

in an international context.

Directors

* Klaus Werner (1998-2001) * Barbara Steiner (2001-2012) * Franciska Zólyom (since 2012)

Art installation "Labyrinth"

The art installation “Labyrinth” by the artist Olaf Nicolai is located in the publicly accessible garden of the museum. Made from upturned brooms from the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

city cleaning service, it is an attraction for children and an iconic public work of art in Leipzig. In the meantime (2024) the components have become brittle due to constant exposure to

UV rays Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of th ...

and the weather. Research is being carried out "in order to realize a version of the work of art that does justice to the artistic interest in the contradictions of the material and at the same time the current need for sustainability."ibid.

Bibliography

* * Elke Krasny (Hrsg.): ''Hands on Urbanism 1850-2012. Vom Recht auf Grün'', Verlag Turia + Kant, Wien 2012, ISBN 978-3-85132-677-2.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig in the e-flux Directory

Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig in the Contemporary Art Library
Contemporary art galleries in Germany Museums in Leipzig Art museums and galleries established in 1998