The Marx Collection: A Selection

The presentation in Łódź of European and American painting from Dr Marx’s collection is the outcome of the collector’s visit to Atlas Sztuki in June last year for the opening of Roman Lipski’s solo exhibition, which included several works from Dr Marx’s holdings. Dr Erich Marx is an exceptionally warm and engaging man, open to new experiences and a friend of our country. Despite his age — he was eighty-nine during last year’s visit — the collector took an active part in the opening and, in excellent form, stayed with us until late at night.

Dr Erich Marx’s collection is the most important and substantial private art collection in Berlin. It is also one of the foremost collections of contemporary art in Germany and the world. A portion of the collection — including works by Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly — was first shown at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie in 1982 and met with an enthusiastic response. Following the presentation, the State of Berlin, wishing to keep Dr Erich Marx’s collection in the city, decided to convert the disused former Hamburger Bahnhof railway station into a venue for contemporary art and to install the principal series from the collection’s core holdings there as a permanent exhibition.

Dr Erich Marx’s collection has never before been presented in Poland. Together with the exhibition’s curator, Professor Eugen Blume, who also directs the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Dr Marx decided to present works in Poland that trace the development of painting over the last three decades. In a highly concentrated form, the exhibition’s twenty-two works represent important European and North American painting tendencies among artists of the middle and younger generations:
1. Ross Bleckner, Middle Sex of Angels, 1988,
2. Ross Bleckner, Architecture of the Sky V, 1989,
3. Rafał Bujnowski, Springerin, 2003,
4. Sandro Chia, Genova, 1980,
5. Sandro Chia, Le héros de l’absinthe, 1983,
6. Enzo Cucchi, Pesce in Schiena del Mare Adriatico, 1980,
7. Walter Dahn, Ohne Titel (Hand mit Kerze), 1982,
8. Martin Disler, Rubbing an Eye Against, 1984,
9. Tim Eitel, Boot, 2004,
10. Rainer Fetting, Van Gogh – Landschaft, 1978,
11. Eberhard Havekost, Security Service, 2005,
12. Eberhard Havekost, Lady Sovereign, 2006,
13. Anselm Kiefer, Des Malers Atelier, 1979,
14. Roman Lipski, Ohne Titel, 2007,
15. Roman Lipski, Ohne Titel, 2008,
16. Fiona Rae, Ohne Titel (Schwarz I), 1990,
17. Fiona Rae, Ohne Titel (Grau mit Rechtecken), 1991,
18. Zbigniew Rogalski, Untitled (Kant), 2003,
19. Zbigniew Rogalski, Untitled (Nietzsche), 2003,
20. Salomé, Sumo-Kämpfer, 1980,
21. Wilhelm Sasnal, Untitled (Hidden Couple), 2003,
22. Julian Schnabel, CVF, 1985.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue. We invited Aneta Panek of the Polish Institute in Berlin to collaborate on it, and she interviewed Dr Erich Marx. Their meeting resulted in a fascinating, highly readable conversation that draws the reader in. Marta Skłodowska contributed an engaging essay on the collection and on collecting. The catalogue also includes illuminating texts on Dr Erich Marx’s collection by the collector himself, Professor Eugen Blume and Dr Katharina Schlüter of the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, as well as Magdalena Lewoc of the National Museum in Szczecin. The essays by Professor Blume, Dr Schlüter and Magdalena Lewoc also appeared, alongside other texts not included in this catalogue, in a carefully produced publication prepared by the National Museum in Szczecin to accompany the exhibition’s presentation there. Rüdiger Freiherr von Fritsch, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Poland, granted his honorary patronage to the exhibition of selections from Dr Erich Marx’s collection at Atlas Sztuki. The Ambassador also wrote a foreword to our exhibition, which we publish in the catalogue.

Exceptionally, the logos of organisations other than Atlas Sztuki and Atlas appear in connection with this exhibition. Because the exhibition is exceptional, readers will find the logos of the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, the National Museum in Szczecin, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Warsaw and the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation. Nor is that all: we also reproduce two welcome emblems — those of the Polish Presidency of the EU and of twenty years of good neighbourly relations between Poland and Germany. The presence of these last two gives particular satisfaction: it is a visible sign of the changes that have occurred since Poland’s political transformation in 1989.

We have prepared Polish- and German-language editions of the catalogue. I warmly recommend it.

To discover the treasures Dr Erich Marx has assembled and see how we have presented them in our exhibition space, visit Atlas Sztuki. You are most warmly invited.