Von Becher bis Blume

Just how inspiring and contemporary a private art collection can be is impressively demonstrated by the Cologne couple Ute and Eberhard Garnatz with their holdings. Over decades they have assembled a body of works that celebrates painting as much as photography. Sculptural works are also part of it. The Garnatz Collection bears witness to enthusiasm and a feeling for quality. Throughout, closeness to the artists has always mattered to them. They do not want to own a single work; rather, they follow artistic development and are in some cases in exchange with the artists over many years. The present publication focuses on the photographic emphasis of the Garnatz Collection and places selected positions in a stimulating dialogue with works from Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur. It is above all the documentary-conceptual direction, as represented for example by Bernd and Hilla Becher, that invites such a dialogue. The Cologne institution looks after the Becher archive, and the Garnatz Collection, too, contains striking photographs by the artist couple. Stylistically related works by Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth join them in this context and broaden the artistic discourse. In addition, Ute and Eberhard have collected works by artists working experimentally and across media, such as Sigmar Polke. The collectors have followed with great interest those pictorial languages that congenially bring together photographic, painterly and also sculptural forms of expression. Here, too, a position from the holdings of Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur connects: the painter, draughtsman and sculptor Jim Dine has made over his extensive photographic oeuvre to the institution. The present publication and the exhibition of the same name impressively show how two collections of differing origins enter into a stimulating dialogue – an expressive visual soundscape emerges.

Artists:
Bernd und Hilla Becher, Boris Becker, Anna und Bernhard Blume, Chargesheimer, Jim Dine, Frank Dömer, Gina Lee Felber, Candida Höfer, Benjamin Katz, Jürgen Klauke, Astrid Klein, Werner Mantz, Augustina von Nagel, Floris Neusüss, Sigmar Polke, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Arnulf Rainer, Hugo Schmölz, Wilhelm Schürmann, Tata Ronkholz, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth

Exhibition:
Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, 26/11/2020 – 25/4/2021