hello mr. twombly!
if you ever visit munich and have some time on your hands, you should see the new rising star in germanys museums heaven: museum brandhorst. it hosts the private collection of the couple brandhorst and it’s open since may 2009. i went there on a sunny sunday (every sunday you can see all collections in every museum in the city for just 1€ - best idea ever) and found myself very impressed. to begin with the building itself: sauerbruch+hutton architects designed it. the couple also did the much beloved colourful mini skyscraper, the gsw zentrale on kochstraße i always see riding my bike home via kreuzberg. this one here turned out to be very colourful as well. the front is assembled with 36,000 ceramic sticks in 23 different colours of three groups of shades and tonality. walking around it seems to change the colour with every angle. the inside is full of high-tech and innovative stuff as well, but before i lose myself in numbers again, i recommend the website for more information about architecture, museum technology and ecological concept. the inside of the museum is packed with all the stars of the second half of the twentieth century and contemporary artists like joseph beuys, mario merz, sigmar polke, georg baselitz, gerhard richter, bruce nauman, jean-michel basquiat, damien hirst and mike kelley. there are only(!) 160 works on display out of 700 works in total. which is insane i think and gives you an impression of the dimension of the whole thing.
but the best part is yet to come: cy twombly.
the third floor of the museum shows exclusively cy twombly, more than 60 works – paintings, sculptures and drawings. there is a huge curved room, build for the work-group of twelve single paintings named lepanto (2001). moreover there are, beside others, six flower paintings made by mr. twombly himself for the museum. as i walked through the rooms the incoming natural light (from the special made ceilings) changed with every cloud passing by, so does the artworks, which made it even more overwhelming. and it goes on like this. i can tell you, it’s impressive and really worth to see.
more candy at the end! that mr. twombley left every kind of artists with no more than tons of inspiration shows this project by the tate museum. it’s called tate tracks and is an experiment between art and music. the band union of knives was invited to walk around the gallery and find a work of art that would inspire them to write a track. they choose cy twombly’s quattro stagioni, i quote: which blew them away. how this turned out, go there to hear. enjoy.
1-3: munich, museum brandhorst, outside view on a very hot day
4: the lepanto room
5: view into the other rooms
6: left: james lee byars - i am imaginary (1978) / right: james lee byars - the lucky stone (circa 1977)
