Museum Brandhorst Opening in Munich

With the opening of the Museum Brandhorst in Munich’s “Kunstareal”, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen gain an institution with an impressive collection of works of modern and contemporary art. The Museum Brandhorst is the new home of the Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection.

Two focal points of emphasis give the Brandhorst Collection its character. With more than sixty paintings, drawings, and sculptures by the American artist Cy Twombly (born 1928), it offers the greatest overview of Twombly’s development outside the USA. The whole upper floor is dedicated to Cy Twombly and shows, among other works the Lepanto and Roses cycles. The second focal point is Andy Warhol, who is represented with over 100 pieces, among them two huge Last Supper and Oxidation paintings. The collection features other positions with artists such as Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, Eric Fischl, Mario Merz, Franz West, Katharina Fritsch, Christopher Wool, Robert Gober, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and others. A recent acquisition has been the multimedia work Western Union: Small Boats by Isaac Julien.

The new museum is located in Munich’s art district with the Alte Pinakothek, the Neue Pinakothek, the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Glyptotek, and the Antiquities Collection. It has been designed by the Berlin architects Sauerbruch Hutton and is clad in 36’000 glazed ceramic rods in 23 different colors. The Museum Brandhorst features innovative lighting technology and an ecologically conceived climate-control system.

In this video features atmospheric shots from the inauguration ceremony of the Museum Brandhorst and excerpts from an interview with the Director of the Brandhorst Collection, Prof. Dr. Armin Zweite, and the Deputy Director General of the Bayerische Gemäldesammlungen, Prof. Dr. Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, who talk about Museum Brandhorst’s architecture, the origins of the Brandhorst Collection, and the partnership between the Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. View the full-length version of the interview below.

Museum Brandhorst, Opening Ceremony. Munich / Germany, May 19, 2009. Interview: Gürsoy Dogtas. Video: Karolina Zupan-Rupp, Heinrich Schmidt.

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Full-length version of the video (23:50 min.):

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