on focus
from 24.11.2017 to 11.11.2018

Visual Emotions

The Collection of Kerstin Hiller and Helmut Schmelzer

Kerstin Hiller and Helmut Schmelzer have collected outstanding works by prominent artists, which they have made available to Neues Museum as permanent loans. Especially noteworthy is the fact that they acquired works in close consultation with the Museum, specifically for its spaces. This led to the creation of a series of ensembles that have been installed since 2017 in the collection rooms on the upper floor. In some cases, works were made specially for the museum, binding them to it.

The series started in January 2017 with Franz Erhard Walther’s Nuremberg Room, which set the standard for what was to come, with work by Wiebke Siem, Manuel Franke, Allan McCollum and Richard Artschwager. Alighiero Boetti, Leni Hoffmann, Imi Knoebel, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Michael E. Smith and Rosemarie Trockel are further highlights in a collection that is by no means lacking in big names and important works.

Borrowed from Austrian writer Friederike Mayröcker, the word “Augengefühle” (the eye’s emotions, visual feelings) is a poetic metaphor for the core defining quality of the collection of Kerstin Hiller and Helmut Schmelzer: the unity of thinking, seeing, and feeling. Conceptual rigor coupled with aesthetic self-evidence, generating the most beautiful visual emotions.

Cooperation

A cooperation of Neues Museum and Collection Kerstin Hiller and Helmut Schmelzer