The Kunstmuseum Bonn or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its collection. Its collection is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German art. It is part of Bonn's "Museum Mile".

Architecture

The present building, which opened in 1992, was created by the BJSS firm (Axel Schultes) and Jürgen Pleuser at a cost of around DM-100 million. It has three entrances, symbolising openness. The design of the staircase has been described as a "precise geometry, cut like jewellery. The conception of light brings the collection to life." The total exhibition area is around 4000 square metres (43,055.6 sq ft).

Rhenish Expressionism and art since 1945

The collections of the Kunstmuseum focus on three strongpoints: Rhenish

Rhineland

Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

 Expressionism (the largest collection in the world), post-war German art (particularly the '60s to the early '90s), and an international collection of post-war print

Printmaking

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

s. German artists on display include Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz is a German painter who studied in the former East Germany, before moving to what was then the country of West Germany...

, Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...

, Hanne Darboven

Hanne Darboven

Hanne Darboven was a German conceptual artist. She became best known for her large scale minimalist installations consisting of handwritten tables of numbers.-Early life and career:...

, Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...

, August Macke

August Macke

August Macke was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter . He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art which saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which...

 and Blinky Palermo

Blinky Palermo

Blinky Palermo, was a German abstract painter.-Early life and education:Palermo was born Peter Schwarze in Leipzig, Germany, in 1943, and adopted as an infant, with his twin brother, Michael, by foster parents named Heisterkamp, became Peter Heisterkamp, and moved to Münster in 1952...

. Selected non-German artists are integrated into the display, such as Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...

 in the Macke section, Richard Long

Richard Long (artist)

Richard Long is an English sculptor, photographer and painter, one of the best known British land artists. Long is the only artist to be shortlisted for the Turner Prize four times, and he is reputed to have refused the prize in 1984...

 in combination with Palermo, Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana was an Italian painter, sculptor and theorist of Argentine birth. He was mostly known as the founder of Spatialism and his ties to Arte Povera.-Early life:...

 with Beuys, and Jannis Kounellis

Jannis Kounellis

Jannis Kounellis was born on March 23, 1936 in Piraeus, Greece. He studied in art college in Athens until 1956 and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome....

 with Gerhard Merz.

August Macke in the Kunstmuseum

Prints collection and video art

The prints collection, featuring around 5,000 works from the 20th and 21st centuries, includes so-called "multiples" by Beuys, illustrated books by Max Ernst

Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...

, and printed graphics from the Bolliger Collection.

The Oppenheim Collection of video art

Video art

Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...

 includes works by Dennis Oppenheim, Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas

Born in 1936 in New York City, Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art and one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.She began her career in New York City as a sculptor...

, Klaus vom Bruch

Klaus vom Bruch

Klaus vom Bruch is a German media artist who is considered a pioneer of German video art.-Biography:Vom Bruch studied conceptual art at the California Institute of the Arts with John Baldessari from 1975 to 1976, and philosophy at the University of Cologne from 1976 to 1980. With Ulrike Rosenbach...

, Marcel Odenbach

Marcel Odenbach

Marcel Odenbach, with Ulrike Rosenbach and Klaus vom Bruch, is one of the most well-established and internationally known German video artists. In the 1970s, they formed the producer group ATV...

 and Julian Rosefeldt

Julian Rosefeldt

-Life:Julian Rosefeldt studied architecture in Munich and Barcelona. After receiving his diploma in 1994, he began working in collaboration with fellow Munich graduate Piero Steinle. Since 1999 he has worked independently...

.Video art

The Videonale

Videonale

Videonale is an annual international festival and competition for art videos in Bonn, Germany, held since 1984.-History:Since its beginnings, the festival has constantly been altered. Apart from the competition, the Videonale presents a large exhibition of installation art and panel discussions on...

 festival of contemporary video art, now based at the Kunstmuseum, has taken place biennially in Bonn since 1984.

New direction

In 2005, the museum sold the former Grothe Collection to a married pair of collectors, the Ströhers, for €

Euro

The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

50m. This triggered a wide-ranging set of changes to the permanent exhibition, beginning in 2007, described by the incoming director Stephan Berg as a "certain rejuvenation". The works on the way out included Degenerate Art by Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matter and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint...

 and Assisi Cycle by Gotthard Graubner

Gotthard Graubner

Gotthard Graubner is a German painter. He was born in Erlbach, in Saxony, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf, before becoming a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, in 1969...

. Their place was taken by the work of younger artists. Some of the sculptures in front of the building were also acquired by the Ströhers.

Further reading

• Kunstmuseum Bonn (editor): Deutsche Dokumente – Arbeiten auf Papier im Kunstmuseum Bonn. Die Sammlung. Bonn, 1992; no ISBN.