The Art Newspaper

Brandhorst Museum opens in three-day festival of pomp

Building and displays are lauded, but concerns remain about the size of the budget

By Rita Pokorny | Web only
Published online 24 Jun 09 (Museums)

Brandhorst Museum

Munich. The opening of the Brandhorst Museum was marked by a three-day festival featuring such degrees of ceremony and ritual that one might have been forgiven for thinking that a visiting head of state was somewhere in the vicinity.

On day one, the building was blessed by a Catholic bishop, a Protestant bishop and an archpriest of the Greek-Orthodox church. On the morning of the second day, the first press representatives arrived, only to be disappointed by the absence of Udo Brandhorst who, with his late wife Anette, amassed the vast collection of modern art that the eponymous museum now encloses. That afternoon, more journalists came. So, too, did politicians, led by the Bavarian prime minister, Horst Seehofer, whose presence turned the opening into a state occasion. On the third day, around 1,000 guests of honour, sponsors, collectors and policy-makers gathered in a marquee erected by the organisers between the Pinakothek der Moderne and the new museum.

From the public opening on 21 May it seemed—if the length of the queues was an indicator—as if most of Munich wanted to come and see what the fuss was about. After the first week, the building, expected to hold 640 people at any given time, had already registered 32,000 visitors.

In his address, Bavaria’s minister of culture, Wolfgang Heubisch, was uncertain whether the estimated cost of the building was €35m, €46m or €48m. The architect, Matthias Sauerbruch, reminded him that a cost of €48m was finally agreed, but that there had been a shortfall of €2m. Mr Seehofer then “joked” that the difference could be recorded as “opening expenses”—a comment intended, it seemed, as light relief from those who critics who regarded the project as a whole as simply too expensive: a public investment in a private collection with all the future staff and maintenance costs that that entails. Only the post of director will be funded by the Brandhorst Foundation.

Nevertheless there was praise all round for the museum’s use of the latest technology based on the most recent environmental research. For example, a level temperature is maintained by heated groundwater. The outer shell of the building, which is reminiscent of the hull of a ship, is clad with shimmering, multi-coloured, ceramic rods that take away some of the weight of the elongated structure. The complex natural lighting system in the interior spaces, along with the oak flooring and the railings, create something of the atmosphere of a medium-sized ocean liner that has run aground in water so deep that light filtering through the surface of the water can penetrate the interior from above. This is the perfect lighting for the sinking ships in Cy Twombly’s “Lepanto” series which situated in the octagonal, central top floor. The Twombly collection, the largest outside the US, has been further enhanced by acquisition of Twombly’s most recent work, the 2007 “Roses” series.

Alongside some 100 Warhols are displayed examples of work by a roll-call of practitioners who have had a decisive influence on contemporary art, including Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars, John Chamberlain, Eric Fischl, Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Alex Katz, Mike Kelley, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Christopher Wool, as well others who do not quite fit the mould, such as David LaChapelle. One major piece was missing—Damien Hirst’s six-metre-high bronze sculpture Hymn, 2000. Its absence was said to be due to structural problems.

Outside of all the opening razzle-dazzle, the Brandhorst’s annual budget of €2m is a source of tension; the other art museums belonging to the Bavarian State Art Collections have to get by on between €40,000 and €65,000 a year. According to the new director of the state art collections, Klaus Schrenk: “The budget for acquisitions must be raised to a respectable level.” He added that when he was appointed he was expecting the budget to be increased but it was obvious that the government’s finance minister had decided otherwise in view of the current financial crisis.

How will the museums deal with this imbalance? Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, director of the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Brandhorst Museum’s immediate neighbour, believes that the museums could benefit “indirectly” from the Brandhorst’s budget. “We hope it will make the Bavarian government realise that all museums need to be given much stronger support,” she said.

Mr Schrenk, who describes his new job as “every art historian’s dream”, believes his task is to close existing gaps in the collections of modern art. These occur mainly in German art of the 1960s. “Of course, Beuys, Polke, Richter and Baselitz are well represented, but it is important to bring the public face to face with their different phases of creativity. After all, not since Dürer had German artists achieved worldwide recognition in their lifetime.”

Comments