Museum am Ostwall
Encyclopedia
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
and contemporary art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
in Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
, 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...
. It was founded in the late 1940s, and has been located in the Dortmund U-Tower
Dortmund U-Tower
The U-Tower or Dortmunder U is a former brewery building in the city of Dortmund, Germany. Since 2010 it serves as a center for the arts and creativity, housing among other facilities the Museum Ostwall.- History :...
since 2010. The collection includes paintings, sculptures, objects and photographs from the 20th century, plus over 2,500 graphics, spanning Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
through classic modern art to the present day.
History
The museum's original location, from 1947 until 2009, was a building on the Ostwall (a road in central Dortmund following the old city walls), including a small sculpture gardenSculpture garden
A sculpture garden is an outdoor garden dedicated to the presentation of sculpture, usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings....
. The previous building on the site had been the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte
Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte
The Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte or MKK is a municipal museum in Dortmund, Germany. It is currently located in an Art Deco building which was formerly the Dortmund Savings Bank....
(MKK), a municipal art collection, from 1911 until its destruction in World War II; before 1911 it housed the old Westphalia Mining Authority.
A gradual rebuilding, using construction materials from the ruins of the MKK, began in the late 1940s. The first exhibition at the Museum am Ostwall was held in 1949 – making it one of Germany's first post-war museums of 20th century art – and it continued to be expanded until 1956. The MKK, meanwhile, was provisionally rehomed in Cappenberg Castle
Cappenberg Castle
Cappenberg Castle is a former Premonstratensian monastery, Cappenberg Abbey in Cappenberg, a part of Selm, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany...
until its return to Dortmund in 1983.
In June 2009 the original building closed its doors, and the museum began relocating into the U-Tower
Dortmund U-Tower
The U-Tower or Dortmunder U is a former brewery building in the city of Dortmund, Germany. Since 2010 it serves as a center for the arts and creativity, housing among other facilities the Museum Ostwall.- History :...
, where it reopened under the new, shortened name Museum Ostwall in October 2010. The seven-storey tower, a former Dortmund Union brewery and warehouse, played a key role in the Ruhr Area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
's rebranding as "Culture Capital of Europe 2010" (RUHR.2010 – Kulturhauptstadt Europas). The museum reopened with the special exhibition "The Museum as Power Station" (Das Museum als Kraftwerk).
Collection
The collection was initially compiled from works that the Nazis had classified as "degenerate artDegenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
". The Gröppel Collection, containing around 200 paintings, sculptures and graphics, was acquired in 1957 and is now one of the keystones of the museum.
At the heart of the collection are works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
, Otto Mueller
Otto Mueller
Otto Mueller or Müller was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Brücke expressionist movement.-Life and work:...
, Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke.-Life and work:...
, who founded the movement Die Brücke
Die Brücke
Die Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
in 1905. The avant-garde Blaue Reiter
Der Blaue Reiter
Der Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
group, started in 1912, is represented here by the works of Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, Franz Marc
Franz Marc
Franz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement...
, 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 Alexej von Jawlensky
Alexej von Jawlensky
Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association , Der Blaue Reiter group and later the Die Blaue Vier .-Life and work:Alexej von Jawlensky was born in Torzhok, a town in Tver...
. The collection of Jawlensky is the second-largest in Germany, after that of the Museum Wiesbaden
Museum Wiesbaden
Museum Wiesbaden is a museum in the Hessian capital Wiesbaden, Germany. Besides the museums in Kassel and Darmstadt, it is one of the three Hessian state museums. The museum comprises an art collection, a natural history collection and a collection of Nassauian antiquities.-External links:***...
.
The museum also owns 26 graphics by Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
from the 1940s and '50s, plus others by Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
and Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
. The collection includes a single work each by Otto Dix
Otto Dix
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...
, Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist.-Life and work:...
, Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
, Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
and Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923 he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working some time at the workshop of sculpture...
. Among the still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s, the highlight is Christian Rohlfs
Christian Rohlfs
Christian Rohlfs was a German painter, one of the important representatives of German expressionism....
.
In the early 1990s the museum acquired over 1,000 works from the collection of the artist Siegfried Cremer, by artists including Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, 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...
, Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....
, Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell was a German painter, sculptor, noise music maker and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement...
, Günther Uecker
Günther Uecker
Günther Uecker, also known as Guenther Uecker, is a German sculptor, op artist and installation artist.- Biography :...
and Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
, strengthening the museum's coverage of the Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
, ZERO and "informal art" movements.
Activities
1962 saw the opening of a children's painting studio, one of the first such teaching projects in a museum. The "Youth Art Club" (Jugendkunstclub) gives youngsters the chance to visit exhibitions, meet artists, and produce their own works in the museum's studio. During the school holidays it also offers art workshops. Educational projects will continue in the new location.The exhibition is changed twice a year, in order to present as many works as possible to the public.
The museum's old rooms provided a venue for touring concerts and matinees. The museum also publishes art books and catalogues, partly funded by the non-profit society "Friends of the Museum am Ostwall".