COLOGNE, GERMANY.- ART COLOGNE is celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2006 (it runs from 1 to 5 November). To mark the occasion, an exhibition will be staged and a Festschrift published titled Um '67 Rudolf Zwirner und die frühen Jahre des Kunstmarkts Köln [1967 - Rudolf Zwirner and the Kunstmarkt Köln in its early years]. The exhibition is curated by Brigitte Jacobs van Renswou and Günter Herzog, head of ZADIK, the Cologne-based Zentralarchiv des internationalen Kunsthandels [the central archive of the international art trade]. ZADIK was founded and is sponsored by the Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien (BVDG), Germany's national art galleries' association. The exhibition will be staged in Rudolf Zwirner's very first gallery rooms in Cologne. A co-founder of the ‘Kölner Kunstmarkt' [Cologne Art Fair] in 1967, Zwirner is this year's ART COLOGNE prizewinner. The Prize is sponsored by the BVDG and Koelnmesse and honours Zwirner's outstanding achievements in the promotion and encouragement of modern and contemporary art.

The exhibition focuses first on the late 1960s when Hein Stünke and Rudolf Zwirner founded the ‘Kölner Kunstmarkt' and second, on the early years of Zwirner's gallery career (1959-1975). The gallery paved the way, and decisively influenced, what Wulf Herzogenrath describes as: ‘The origins of Cologne as a centre for modern and contemporary art.' The exhibition highlights Zwirner's role as a gallerist and dealer at a time of fundamental cultural change. Paris was losing its central role as the capital of the modern art world. The market leader, the École de Paris, was marginalized as Pop Art boomed on the back of changes in attitudes to modern art. The emergence of Fluxus activities and Happenings began to blur the traditional frontiers of modern art. This was accompanied by iconoclastic calls for change in the system. In 1967, the newly founded ‘Kölner Kunstmarkt' set out its stall to promote the new aesthetics. The Fair took place against a background of the emergence of object-related American Pop Art, Pop Art's emphasis on consumerist imagery and changed attitudes of artists towards their function as a source of products.

Zwirner's importance as co-initiator of the ‘Kunstmarkt Köln' was far-reaching. The fair - the ‘mother of all art fairs' - was instrumental in helping the city to success in the field of cultural affairs and in forging strong links with the international art world. Large numbers of young artists and young galleries began to move to Cologne as it became West Germany's major art centre. The exhibition paints a lively picture of these decisive early years and leaves no doubt as to the fair's formative role in moulding and polishing the city's image as a centre for modern and contemporary art.

Zwirner was the first German gallerist to promote American Pop Art in West Germany. Broad recognition of Pop Art in West Germany and Western Europe among collectors and members of the public was largely the result of Zwirner's close working relationship with Wolfgang Hahn, an important collector, and Peter Ludwig, a leading patron and collector of modern art. With the permanent loan of the Peter and Irene Ludwig Collection to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in 1969, the City of Cologne acquired one of the keystones in the history of modern art - the Museum Ludwig Pop Art Collection.

The exhibition in Zwirner's old gallery rooms in Kolumbahof (formerly Kolumbakirchhof) presents works from the Ludwig Collection/Museum Ludwig and other Cologne collections which were acquired through Rudolf Zwirner. The documentary section of the exhibition contains images and texts from the Galerie Zwirner archive now in the possession of ZADIK. The material gives a lively and detailed account of artistic events in 1967.

To mark the exhibition, ZADIK, in cooperation with Koelnmesse, will be publishing a special number in its series entitled sediment. The special number will take the form of a Festschrift. It will contain texts by writers closely associated with Zwirner and is illustrated with reproduction of photographs and documents from the ZADIK archive.