Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear

This exhibition arranged a dialogue between the two most important private collections of the international art scene – the Helga de Alvear Collection and the Harald Faclkenberg Collection, which is one of the mainstays of the exhibition programme at the Sammlung Faclkenberg-Phoenix Kulturstiftung.
To set up this dialogue some 80 works by 40 artists were selected from among the almost 2,000 works of art contained in the Helga de Alvear Collection. Among the chosen artists were Jeff Wall, Gabriel Orozco, Tracey Moffat, Juan Muñoz, Imi Knobel, Isaac Julian, Berni Searle, Dan Flavin, Dan Graham, Allan McCollum, Alberto Peral, Marlene Dumas and Rachel Whiteread who are good examples of the range of approaches and techniques of today’s contemporary art: from photography to video, from painting and drawing to objects, and from sculpture to installation. In this exhibition, which focuses on moments from very recent contemporary art, the works of art from the Helga de Alvear Collection gain new interpretations in the light of this direct dialogue with other works by the same artists or by others from the Falckenberg Collection. The artists’ working methods may be more fully explored, seen in opposition to contrasting artistic concerns or enriched with similar and complementary stylistic or social concerns. Helga de Alvear’s clear and vibrant view of contemporary art confronts Harald Falckenberg’s provocative vision of it.