The Art of Collecting
Beiträge zur Erinnerungskultur
(The Art of Collecting. Contributions to the culture of remembrance)
In January 2003, it was announced that the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation was to put Friedrich Christian Flick’s private collection of contemporary art on show at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin on a loan basis for seven years. This “art coup” was arranged quickly and quietly, with no desire for a public debate in Berlin about the role of the Flick group of companies during the Nazi period or about hosting an art collection with such a troubling historical background. This publication that accompanied the project of the same name initiated by artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock, featuring an exhibition, a panel discussion, and a public poster campaign, was intended as a contribution to a lively culture of memory in Germany. An essay on “La Méthode Flick” interweaving money, power and politics over three generations (grandfather, uncle, grandchildren), is accompanied by an extensive interview with Friedrich Christian Flick, and a text by Tom L. Freudenheim on the links between art patrons, looted goods, and shady sources of money, through to Napoleon and the Medici family.
Ed.: nGbK
Work group: Tsafrir Cohen, Brigitte Schmock, Frieder Schnock, Renata Stih, Marianne Theil
With contributions by: Matthias Frehner, Tom L Freudenheim, Elvira Pichler, Jutta Raulwing, Urs Steiner, Renata Stih, Frieder Schnock