Mayor Feldmann: "Max Hollein has made Frankfurt a more beautiful city"
(ffm) The director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Max Hollein, was awarded the Goethe Plaque of the City of Frankfurt on Friday, June 14. "We are proud of what you have created here in Frankfurt," said Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann at the award ceremony in the Kaisersaal. Max Hollein was director of the Schirn Kunsthalle from 2001, and from 2006 he also headed the Städel Museum and the Liebieghaus - before he moved to the US in 2016. "What we remember are not only great exhibitions like Botticelli, Monet or Jeff Koons," Feldmann said. "What we remember are the renewals of the museums, above all the Städel with its structural, artistic and digital expansion." With the Goethe plaque, Max Hollein will now remain forever connected to the city - "a Frankfurter in New York," said the city leader.
Culture department head Ina Hartwig said, "Max Hollein is an exceptional figure in the culture industry. For many years he has shown in our city how art and business can be brought together in a fruitful unity. Frankfurt owes him a lot, Max Hollein has significantly shaped the museum profile of our city!"
Max Hollein said, "I have experienced Frankfurt not only as a highly valued home for our family over many years. But also as an outstandingly international, dynamic and livable city, whose urban society has shown unparalleled commitment to culture and in particular to the three institutions Städel, Schirn and Liebieghaus. Only in this way have we been able to take great steps of further development together — and for this I would like to thank today, the many people and friends who have accompanied me here in Frankfurt."
Hollein had left Frankfurt in 2016, taking over as director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. In August, he headed to New York as the new director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The city is by no means unknown to the Viennese-born artist: in 2001, he came to Frankfurt from the Guggenheim Museum there to the Schirn Kunsthalle.
