The MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main owns an important collection of outstanding works of Minimal Art from the 1960s and 70s. In a major survey show featuring almost 50 artists, the MMK is presenting the masterpieces of this collection in a comprehensive way for the first time.
The purchase of Karl Ströher's former collection by the City of Frankfurt in 1981 brought the unique body of works by US Minimal artists of the early 1960s to the museum. In addition, with the collection acquired in 2006 by the former gallery owner and collector Rolf Ricke, the MMK's holdings also include outstanding works of Postminimalism.
Seriality, conceptuality and industrial production were the new principles of the artists Carl Andre, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Fred Sandback, who revolutionized art in the 1960s with their radical works. For the first time in the history of art, they used industrially produced or processed materials and reduced their works to basic geometric structures, so-called "Primary Structures". With its title, the exhibition at MMK 2 is linked to the groundbreaking exhibition of the same name at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1966 - the first exhibition of Minimal Art. The key work "Cage" by Walter De Maria from 1965, now part of the MMK collection, was already on view at that time in this groundbreaking exhibition.
For the presentation at MMK 2, Heiner Friedrich's legendary Munich gallery, which was one of the first to show works by Minimal artists in Germany, has been reconstructed with two historic exhibitions from 1968 that began the reception of Minimal Art in Germany: Carl Andre's floor sculpture "22 Steel Row" and Dan Flavin's light installation "Two primary series and one secondary". In the first half of the exhibition Carl Andre's floor sculpture was exhibited in the reconstruction, currently Dan Flavin's work is installed. On view for the first time in an exhibition at the MMK is Carl Andre's work "35 Timber Line" (1968), which has been part of the museum's collection since it opened in 1991, but has never been exhibited before due to lack of space. After being kept in storage for many years, the 35-meter-long work is finally celebrating its MMK premiere in the spacious rooms of MMK 2 as part of the exhibition "Primary Structures".
In addition to masterpieces by the most important representatives of Minimal Art from the 1960s in the USA and Germany, the presentation also includes more recent works that refer significantly to Minimalism. These include works by Jo Baer, Bruce Nauman, Robert Mangold, Charlotte Posenenske, Peter Roehr, Lewis Stein and William Forsythe, but above all the representatives of the younger generation of artists such as Teresa Margolles, Michael Beutler, Benedikte Bjerre, Ceal Floyer, Jonas Weichsel, Sarah Morris and Santiago Sierra.
The exhibition concludes with the work "Outdoor-yellow 13" (2004) by Michael Beutler in the main lobby of the TaunusTurm. For the unusual room height of the lobby, the artist altered and expanded his work in a site-specific manner. With the industrially specified primary color and its materiality, Beutler's work links to the concepts of Minimal Art in terms of content.
Artists in the exhibition: Carl Andre, Richard Artschwager, Jo Baer, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Michael Beutler, Benedikte Bjerre, Alighiero Boetti, Bill Bollinger, George Brecht, Marcel Broodthaers, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Ceal Floyer, William Forsythe, Günther Förg, Isa Genzken, Hermann Goepfert, Bethan Huws, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Ellsworth Kelly, Joseph Kosuth, Gary Kuehn, Barry La Va, Robert Mangold, Teresa Margolles, Sarah Morris, Bruce Nauman, Kenneth C. Noland, Blinky Palermo, Steven Parrino, Angelika Platen, Charlotte Posenenske, Timm Rautert, Peter Roehr, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ulrich Rückriem, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Santiago Sierra, Andreas Slominski, Lewis Stein, Heide Stolz, Franz Erhard Walther, Jonas Weichsel, and Lawrence Weiner.
Source and further information: http://mmk-frankfurt.de/de/nc/ausstellungen/ausstellung-details/article/primary_structures_meisterwerke_der_minimal_art/
