Generosity

The exhibition “Generosity. Donations and Loans from the ZKM Collection”, honors the act of giving and donating though which, in recent years, the collection of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe has been enriched with significant works of art by internationally known artists. Following the exhibitions “Architektur und Identität”, 2010/11 and “PRESENTation”, 2012, which provided insights into the ZKM collection for the first time, the exhibition “Generosity” emphasizes those works which were handed over to the house as donations and permanent loans. Works of art by over forty international artists will be shown which, in various media, straddle a period ranging from the 1060s to the present.

Since the founding of the ZKM in 1989, the collection, initially directed by Heinrich Klotz and presently chaired by Peter Weibel, has grown to around 1500 positions; in addition to a large number of works of media art it also contains paintings, photographs, installations, videos and works on paper. Civic participation, which expresses itself in the transfer of works of art by single persons – among which are often artists themselves–, families and companies to public institutions, guarantees free access to art to a broad public and thus represents an invaluable value for the generality.

Artists: Hans Peter Alvermann, John Armleder, Sieglinde Bölz, Christoph Brech, Jimmie Durham, Günther Förg, Andreas Gursky, Karl-Horst Hödicke, Edward Kienholz und Nancy Reddin-Kienholz, Jürgen Klauke, Barbara Klemm, Imi Knoebel, Mischa Kuball, Urs Lüthi, Heinz Mack, Michel Majerus, Gordon Matta-Clark, Olaf Metzel, Michael Najjar, Dennis Oppenheim, Fabrizio Plessi, Otto Piene, Elke Sommer, Hans-Peter Reuter, Thomas Struth, Günther Uecker, Timm Ulrichs, Jürgen Waller, Franz Erhard Walther, Hermann Weber, Erwin Wurm, Herbert Zangs

Curators: Nina Fernandez, Idis Hartmann, Daria Mille, Philipp Ziegler