Nilbar Güreş, Roman Ondak: Group Therapy. Collections in Dialogue

Nilbar Güreş, LOVERS, 2011, needled fabrics, necklace, Photo: Stephan Baumann

Deutsche Telekom is the donor of an extensive collection of Eastern European art created over the last two decades. The collection was founded in 2010 and is based in Bonn. The GHMP has also managed to assemble a rather large collection of contemporary art from the 1990s to the present day over the past ten years. Contrary to the initial proposal by Nathalie Hoyos and Rainald Schumacher, the curators of the collection, to exhibit a selection from this remarkable collection, we have decided after mutual discussions to opt for a more active collaboration between our institutions. In the forthcoming project, we present a comparison of the two collecting approaches and attempt to confront the artists and their themes from our side and theirs. We also turn our attention to what both institutions reflect or pursue in their collecting strategies.

Deutsche Telekom works with the entire Eastern European area, while Czech artists are only a minority in its collection. The aim of the project will be to place Czech representatives of the young and slightly older generations alongside their contemporaries from the rest of the countries of the former “East”, and to look for ways in which they are on the same wavelength and in which they may even be absolutely different. We will be looking at their work through such headings as Equality and Democracy, Collective Authorship, History and its Current Perception, What New Technologies Bring and What They Negate, and others.

In the past, the GHMP has presented examples from various important international collections (Sprengel Museum, Hanover, 1993; Royal Swedish Collection, 1995; Moderna Muset, Stockholm, 1999; Rhineland Museum, Bonn, 2000; Berlinische Galerie Collection, 2002; Prinzhorn Collection, 2009, etc.). The exhibition project Group Therapy is being prepared in connection with this line of exhibitions.