DRESDEN.- This year the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst in Dresden e.V. (Society for Modern Art in Dresden) is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. The Galerie Neue Meister is taking this as an opportunity to pay tribute to the effort and commitment of the Society, which was founded in 1994, by holding an exhibition of contemporary art.

Following in the tradition of the legendary association of art patrons which enabled modern art to be purchased for the Dresden Gemäldegalerie after the First World War, the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst has purchased more than 45 works, mostly of contemporary art, over the past two decades and these have been given on permanent loan to the Gallery. In this way, works by such artists as Marlene Dumas, Candida Höfer and Luc Tuymans have come into the collection. A focal point among these purchases are works by artists who have brought fresh impetus to painting since the mid-1990s, some of them while based in Dresden. They include Ronald de Bloeme, Eberhard Havekost, Johannes Kahrs, Peter Krauskopf, Sophia Schama and Koen Vermeule. Along with the purchases made by the Galerie Neue Meister itself, these works have had a formative influence on the Gallery’s contemporary collection since the 1990s.

This exhibition presents selected works purchased by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst within the broader context of the holdings of the Gallery and the Kunstfonds, the newer works entering into a “dialogue” across time with the older works in the collection. In addition to painting, examples of photography, film and installation are also included, in keeping with the concept which has been followed since the mid-1990s whereby the character of the collection is to be opened up – in response to the multimedia diversification of contemporary art – turning the picture gallery into a true “gallery of modern masters”, as reflected in its name.

The artists
Karl-Heinz Adler, Claudia Angelmaier, Armando, Georg Baselitz, Ronald de Bloeme, Martin Borowski, Monika Brandmeier, Markus Draper, Marlene Dumas, Norbert Frensch, Günter Fruhtrunk, Rupprecht Geiger, Raimund Girke, Hermann Glöckner, Beate Gütschow, Eberhard Havekost, Matthias Hoch, Candida Höfer, Olaf Holzapfel, Johannes Kahrs, Petra Kasten, Ralf Kerbach, Konrad Klapheck, Jürgen Klauke, Thoralf Knobloch, Peter Krauskopf, Robert Lucander, Martin Mannig, Marwan, Wilhelm Müller, Frank Nitsche, Sigmar Polke, Egon Pukall, Gerhard Richter, Sophia Schama, Thomas Scheibitz, Katharina Sieverding, Ena Swansea, Florian Thomas, Albrecht Tübke, Luc Tuymans, Emo Verkerk, Koen Vermeule, Remy Zaugg