works
of comtemporary art from the Daimler Art Collection - a comprehensive
portrait of the collection
Exhibition
Tour
The
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.
The company is
sending a selection of about 200 of its most important works, from Josef
Albers via Andy Warhol to Sylvie Fleury, on a world tour - currently
and in the next year or two.
The exhibitions
show painting, sculpture, photography and video art thematically, thus
cutting across generations and classifications. The shows center around
recent acquisitions.
Pretoria
Art Museum, Southafrica
About 150 works of contemporary
art from DaimlerArt Collection
Museum Africa, Johannesburg, Southafrica New Tendencies, Photography,
and Video from the Collection DaimlerWorkshops during the exhibition
Museum
für Neue Kunst ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
About 200 works of comtemporary
art from the Daimler Art Collection
Exhibition views and information
Introduction
to the selected works of the shows
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.
Ugo
Rondinone
Nr. 214 VIERUNDZWANZIGSTERJULIZWEITAUSEND; 2000 60'
Simone
Westerwinter
from: 60 Name water-colors, 2001
15' x 22'
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.
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, Bernar Venet, Olivier Mosset, Michael Heizer, 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 assert
The work of artists
like John M Armleder, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Peter Halley or Andrea Zittel
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.