Daimler Contemporary
20 June – 21 September 2008
Private/Corporate
V
of the Collection Lafrenz, Hamburg, and Daimler
Catalogue
Press Download
Johannes Esper,
Angle, 2004
Katja
Strunz
Configuration, 2006
Introduction
The Lafrenz Collection concentrates on aspects of Minimal and Concept Art, Post Painterly Abstraction, Land Art and Arte Povera. It was established in the 1970s by Dr. Klaus and Rosemarie Lafrenz, and its works lay behind the foundation of the Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, which is seen as the prototype of the collector's museum. At the same time, part of the Lafrenz Collection is on permanent loan to the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, and has also been shown in various national and international exhibition contexts.
As the oldest of the four children, Björn Lafrenz took over continuing and presenting the collection as a private commitment, after his father's early death. So among other things he is still pursuing the original idea of not concentrating on work series, but on placing individual works by different artists, from the 1960s to the present day - for example Judd, Ryman, Serra, LeWitt, Marden, Mangold, Novros - in new dialogue situations. His background is architecture, so he is especially interested in spatial interplay. In the mean time, work by contemporary artists, represented here by Johannes Esper, Frank Gerritz and Liam Gillick, have joined what are mainly American classics - but also German work such as that of Albers, Erben, Palermo and Ruthenbek.For our 'Private/Corporate V' exhibition, Björn Lafrenz has looked at the range of his parents' collection and shifted the classical American protagonists of Minimal Art into the center of attention - Judd, LeWitt, Marden, Novros, Ryman, McCracken - and added an extra dimension, both stringently, but systematically and homogeneously, by juxtaposing them with positions like those of Palermo, Gerritz and Esper.
Against this background, the approach of the Daimler Art Collection, represented in the works from the Collection chosen for this show, takes on a much clearer outline:
1. Taking a new look at Minimal Art from the perspective of stubborn peripheral positions - Posenenske and Schene stand for this, but even Darboven and Walther have been observed only to a limited extent in monographic Minimal Art presentations - and
2. examining Minimalism from the point of view of destruction, of refractions and 'pollutions' - Jonathan Monk, Tom Sachs, Katja Strunz - to assess its substance and load-bearing capabilities.