Exhibition hall with light blue painted walls with sculptures by Thomas Schütte (two painted clay heads on high pedestals and large steel sculpture of a reclining woman) and paintings by May Beckmann

Au rendez-vous des amis. Modernism in Dialogue with Contemporary Art from the Sammlung Goetz

September 28, 2020 – August 4, 2021 | Part 1 | Pinakothek der Moderne

August 5, 2021 – January 15, 2022 | Part 2 | Pinakothek der Moderne

With its multitude of new artistic styles Classical Modernism has been a source of inspiration for successive generations of artists. In the early 20th century the avant garde paved the way for a more liberal treatment of colour, line and perspective, and drafted models for the shaping of a new community. A number of artists, however, have critically examined the legacy of Modernism and questioned the treatment of the body, gender, and identity.
The exhibition Au rendez-vous des amis resulted from the idea of presenting a few works from the Sammlung Goetz in the Pinakothek der Moderne with the aim of rendering the diverse reciprocal relationships between contemporary art and Modernism visible. Curatorial work on the collections, however, revealed an almost inexhaustible potential, resulting in an extensive exhibition of over 200 works.

Like the Expressionists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel, artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Huma Bhabha draw on sculpture from Oceania and Africa for inspiration while their focus on the body is from a female perspective. Picasso’s Cubist formal vocabulary, on the other hand, continues to be a stimulus for creative innovations in contemporary art as demonstrated by the sculptures and paintings of Aaron Curry and Tobias Pils. ‘New Objectivity’ painters such as Karl Hubbuch and George Grosz present the ‘new woman’ of the 1920s and Sarah Lucas picks up their self-confident play with expectations placed on the role of the female in her provocative photographic self-portraits. Two rooms devoted to Abstraction underline how the reformist utopias and Constructivist ideas of the Bauhaus, represented by Oskar Schlemmer, László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers, continue to resound in the works of artist such as Andrea Zittel, Rosemarie Trockel, Gerwald Rockenschaub and Katja Strunz.

The dialogue between Classical Modernism and contemporary art from the Sammlung Goetz continues to be extremely popular with the public. As a consequence, the exhibition has not only been extended until 16 January 2022 but enriched by the curators with new juxtapositions. Some of the thematically conceived rooms have been completely redesigned. These include Room 3, in which paintings by the Blauer Reiter (Blue Rider) artists have now been combined with large-format works by Michael Buthe from the 1980s in their quest for spirituality in art.

The highly expressive painting Agonie (Agony) 1912 by Egon Schiele comes from the collection of the Neue Pinakothek. In Room 4 this work not only comes face to face with Lehmbruck’s sculpture Der Gestürzte (The Fallen), a monument to Europe’s sacrificed youth in World War I, but also with collages by Marcel Odenbach and a large-format photograph by Stan Douglas which address the fate of war-related flight that continues to this day.

A spectacular addition to the juxtaposition of works by the artists Max Beckmann and Thomas Schütte in Room 9 is the latter’s sculpture Stahlfrau Nr. 12 (Steel Woman No. 12), 2003. Up until now this monumental work stood in the sculpture garden in front of the exhibition building of the Sammlung Goetz and, in combination with the minimalist architecture, has become a landmark of the institution. Other highlights in the new presentation of the exhibition include a photograph by Cindy Sherman in dialogue with New Objectivity portraits and figure paintings in Room 7, and a monumental painting by Günter Fruhtrunk Trennendes Rot, (Dividing Red) 1968/69 in Room 11. In addition, objects by Tom Sachs and the painting Cargo (USS Cole), 2004 by Luc Tuymans complement Room 13.

Curated by Oliver Kase and Karsten Löckemann

With the kind support of PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V. as well as the Herbert-Schuchardt-Foundation, München and the Kunststiftung Ingvild und Stephan Goetz.

With Carla Accardi, Josef Albers, Paweł Althamer, Alexander Archipenko, Hans Arp, Francis Bacon, Mária Bartuszová, Willi Baumeister, Max Beckmann, Rudolf Belling, Huma Bhabha, Louise Bourgeois, Georges Braque, Michael Buthe, Giorgio de Chirico, Lovis Corinth, Aaron Curry, Salvador Dalí, Otto Dix, César Domela, Stan Douglas, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Max Ernst, Peter Fischli und David Weiss, Otto Freundlich, Günter Fruhtrunk, Rodney Graham, Walter Gramatté, George Grosz, Carl Grossberg, Hans Hartung, Erich Heckel, Karl Hubbuch, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Kanoldt, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Helmut Kolle, Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz, Jonathan Lasker, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Sherrie Levine, Sarah Lucas, August Macke, René Magritte, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, Takesada Matsutani, Joan Miró, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Henry Moore, Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde, Marcel Odenbach, Paulina Ołowska, Max Pechstein, Manfred Pernice, Pablo Picasso, Tobias Pils, Tal R, Anton Räderscheidt, Franz Radziwill, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Christian Rohlfs, Christian Rosa, Tom Sachs, Wilhelm Sasnal, Christian Schad, Egon Schiele, Oskar Schlemmer, Thomas Schütte, Johanna Schütz-Wolff, George Segal, Cindy Sherman, Katja Strunz, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Rosemarie Trockel, Tatiana Trouvé, Luc Tuymans, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Gilian Wearing, Theodor and Woty Werner, Fritz Winter, A. O. Wols, Thomas Zipp and Andrea Zittel.

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Au rendez-vous des amis. Modernism in Dialogue with Contemporary Art from the Sammlung Goetz

176 pages, 100 ill., hardcover
German/English
2021, Hirmer Verlag, Munich
ISBN 978-3-7774-3766-8
€ 29,90

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STILL LIFE. Photographs from the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation and from the Sammlung Goetz

The dialogue between different collections in the Pinakothek der Moderne continues with the presentation of still life photographs from the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation and the Sammlung Goetz.

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Still life with sea urchin skeletons, glasses, bottles and sheets of paper on a windowsill. Wolfgang Tillmans, Sammlung Goetz, Munich

Art and Music

With the two-part film project dedicated to art and music, the Rendez-vous des amis is supplemented by an additional partner. The exhibition’s curators, Oliver Kase (Sammlung Moderne Kunst) and Karsten Löckemann (Sammlung Goetz), invited the opera singer Anton Leiss-Huber to musically engage with the presentation. Inspired by the works of classical modernism and contemporary art, Leiss-Huber selected popular pieces of music from the 1920s and 1930s composed by Ralph Benatzky. Accompanied by Julian Schwarz (accordion) and Johannes Stern (double bass), the singer interacts with the artworks.

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