MUNICH.- The Stoffel Collection is one of the most important new acquisitions in the history of the Modern Art Collection at the Pinakothek der Moderne. A large proportion of this splendid collection can now be seen for the very first time at this comprehensive exhibition.

From the 1970s onwards, Michael and Eleonore Stoffel passionately worked on building up an exceptional collection with clear objectives and a sense for the unique qualities of each artist. The cosmos which the collection encompasses traces important developments of German and American art from the 1960s up to the ’90s: examples of new developments in painting are represented by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Jörg Immendorff, whose ironic subversive early ›Lidl‹ works are particularly worthy of mention.

Extensive bodies of works by artists including A.R. Penck, Markus Lüpertz and Günter Förg, have helped to shape the Stoffel Collection. Works by the ›Neue Wilden‹ (such as Albert and Markus Oehlen, Martin Kippenberger, Walter Dahn and Jiri Georg Dokoupil) complement the focus on German artists. All of these represent an important supplement to the works already in the Pinakothek der Moderne, built up from the collection of HRH Duke Franz of Bavaria, PIN. Friends of the Pinakothek der Moderne and the museum’s own selective acquisitions.

A particularly important new accent has been set by Rosemarie Trockel’s pictures, objects and room installations executed in various media, in which the artist focuses on the relationship between the sexes, the affinity between mankind and nature and the phenomena of perception in general.

Apart from the works of Carroll Dunham and Terry Winters, one of the focal elements of the American part of the collection is on the works of David Salle, whose collage-like works, with their many facetted pictures of reality, are made up from a mixture of stylistic means, quotations and spontaneous gestural elements.

A special place has been dedicated to installations by Mike Kelley, an artist whose sources of inspiration are to be found far from what is generally acceptable, at the bottom of the social scale. Another facet of the Stoffel Collection can be seen in the South African Marlene Dumas’s subtle but provocative paintings.

Although thematically and stylistically very varied, the Stoffel Collection has a number of elements that link the different works together: on the one hand there is the examination of painting and the radical challenge it has faced under changing historical conditions; on the other hand there is the expansion of formal
means in installational processes and pictorial concepts. What is especially noticeable is a particular sensitivity for socio-political questions.

After Dr. Michael Stoffel’s death in June 2005, his wife Eleonore, who died in 2007, put all her strength into continuing their common patronage of the arts and securing the future of the collection, as intended. The paintings and installations came into the possession of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. With their agreement, it was possible to secure the sculptures for the Skulpturenpark in Cologne.

With its introductory essays and a richly illustrated presentation and explanation of the works, the accompanying catalogue traces the history and focal points of the collection in great depth. The catalogue and exhibition can, as such, be seen as a homage to two exceptional collectors.

Exhibition curator: Carla Schulz-Hoffmann