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In 1985, on the occasion of the presentation of the culture prize to the town of Koblenz , Prof. Dr. Dr. hc. mult. Peter Ludwig, who died in 1996, presented his vision of a museum for contemporary art at the Deutsche Eck, to be located between the Emperor Wilhelm memorial and the Castor church. This was followed in 1988 by the exhibition "Kunst heute in Frankreich (Art today in France )" in the "House Metternich", which presented to the public for the first time some of the recent French art in the Ludwig collection. Shortly afterwards the town acquired the former "Kommende" of the "Deutschherren", the so-called Deutschherrenhaus, which had given the Deutsche Eck its name. The purchase and the conversion of the building, which dates back to the 13 th Century, was sponsored by the "Land" of Rheinland-Pfalz.
The relatively young Ludwig Museum , which was inaugurated in September 1992 with the exhibition "Atelier de France", devoted itself to contemporary art and particularly to French contemporary art. The basis of the permanent collection is mainly post-1945 German and French art, which was assembled by the well-known collector couple, Peter and Irene Ludwig from Aachen , and was left to the Ludwig Museum as a donation or a loan. Over the years this collection of French art was carefully expanded, not only by works of well-known contemporary artists from our neighbouring country, France, but also by works from artists like Pablo Picasso and Jean Dubuffet, by works of well-known Americans (Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg) and German artists (K.O. Götz) as well as by several new acquisitions (for example, works by Patrick Raynaud and Jacques Monory). |
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The main thrust of the collection is works by the generation of artists who appeared openly in public in the sixties, such as the "Nouveaux Réalistes" (Arman, César, Tinguely, Martial Raysse) and "Fluxus" (Vautier, Vostel). To these are added works by artists who developed a variation of Pop-Art, such as Alain Jacquet and the Icelandic painter, Erró. Works by Claude Viallat and Louis Cane give an idea of the abstract art of the group "Support - Surface", which was founded in 1969. Important German artists working in France are represented by Peter Klasen and Jan Voss. "Figuration libre", the French variation of the "Neuen Wilde", which emerged around 1980, is represented by works from Jean-Charles Blais, Hervé di Rosa and Robert Combas.
Besides the exhibition rooms on four floors, the Ludwig Museum also makes use of the adjoining "Blumenhof", which provides an open exhibition area for selected three-dimensional works. Integral parts of the collection are here: the "Daumen" (thumb) from César and the installation "Dépôt de mémoire et d'oubli" (Place of Remembrance and of Forgetting) by Anne and Patrick Poirier, who created this work especially for the founding of the museum. This installation, positioned directly before the memorial to Emperor Wilhelm I, who is turning his face away from France , creates, with its ancient form, a current counterpart and provides a connection between the old and the new.
Through its orientation towards contemporary French art, the Ludwig Museum closes a significant hole in the German museum landscape and performs a unique mediation function to the benefit of young artists - and not only those in France. |
