What a weekend! Several hundred guests celebrated with us the 85th birthday of our founder Heiner Friedrich, culminating in the opening of our new exhibition on Arnulf Rainer.

 

"DASMAXIMUM takes the next big step".

Visitors in front of Arnulf Rainer, Straßenräuber, 1979-1980, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ.

Heiner Friedrich, who already celebrated his 85th birthday on Friday, April 14, had long cherished the wish of an Arnulf Rainer art installation at DASMAXIMUM. The museum's board of trustees took this as an opportunity to make this dream come true on his 85th birthday.

In a very short time and with great drive of the entire DASMAXIMUM team, the seemingly impossible was made possible in the past weeks: a new showroom was created.

Conversion of the warehouse into an exhibition space, photo DASMAXIMUM/PW.

Exhibition opening Arnulf Rainer, exhibition view with visitors, © VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023, photo DASMAXIMUM/PW.

With the opening of the Arnulf Rainer exhibition, DASMAXIMUM has taken another major conceptual step: With a space for changing exhibitions, new doors of permanent and intensive art and contemporary experience open in Traunreut. Even if this and upcoming exhibitions shown here will not be shown "forever" - as in the rest of the museum - this spatial expansion has arisen entirely from the concept of DASMAXIMUM: to offer the artists and their works that maximum impact space to permanently enable the individual dialogue with the viewers.

In his opening speech, Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk (Pinakothek der Moderne) made it clear that Arnulf Rainer, who is known for painting over his own and other people's works and photographs, is the ideal introduction to this expansion:

"[...] it distinguishes Arnulf Rainer as a great artist that he is never finished with this thing, this life's task, that he keeps at this overpainting like a man possessed, always to discover something new, always to understand a little more. In the end, he is a human being like all of us, because we are also busy all our lives - sometimes more, sometimes less - to understand our own existence."

Ksenija Protic and MAria Zerres at the opening speech of the exhibition opening, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ.

Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk during the opening speech at the exhibition opening, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ.

Visitors on the anniversary weekend in front of Blinky Palermo, East-West III, 1976, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ.

With the opening of the Arnulf Rainer exhibition, DASMAXIMUM has taken another major conceptual step: With a space for changing exhibitions, new doors of permanent and intensive art and contemporary experience open in Traunreut. Even if this and upcoming exhibitions shown here will not be shown "forever" - as in the rest of the museum - this spatial expansion has arisen entirely from the concept of DASMAXIMUM: to offer the artists and their works that maximum impact space to permanently enable the individual dialogue with the viewers.

In his opening speech, Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk (Pinakothek der Moderne) made it clear that Arnulf Rainer, who is known for painting over his own and other people's works and photographs, is the ideal introduction to this expansion:

"[...] it distinguishes Arnulf Rainer as a great artist that he is never finished with this thing, this life's task, that he keeps at this overpainting like a man possessed, always to discover something new, always to understand a little more. In the end, he is a human being like all of us, because we are also busy all our lives - sometimes more, sometimes less - to understand our own existence."

Miro Craemer, Maria Zerres, Ksenija Protic, Bernhart Schwenk and Verena Hein (both Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen) in front of works by Arnul Rainer, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ.

Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk and curator Maria Zerres in front of Rainer's highwaymen, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ.

Visitors in the exhibition of Arnulf Rainer, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023, photo DASMAXIMUM/VZ...

With his words Bernhart Schwenk also created the very fundamental connection between Rainer's art and Heiner Friedrich's vision:

"In short, Arnulf Rainer's painting is about what art is capable of in order to trace the essence and essentials of human life - the secrets of which we all do not know and which we can ultimately only approach in an "er-lebend" way."

The "unspeakable" of art has been part of Heiner Friedrich's vision and understanding of art from the very beginning. In the various stages and moments of insight of his life, this approach is more and more consolidated. Today, Heiner Friedrich looks back on a life of 85 years, in which he has made possible and promoted countless art installations in Europe and the USA, and continues to do so. A life full of artists who became companions. On the Saturday of the anniversary weekend, Angelika Ruby, a member of the DASAXIMUM staff, gave a guided tour of the collection based on Heiner Friedrich's life and work, which was met with great interest from the visitors.

On the occasion of the anniversary weekend and the exhibition opening, the Bavarian Radio also visited DASMAXIMUM.

Our thanks go to all those who have made this expansion - and thus a great step for DASMAXIMUM - possible: the Board of Trustees, on whose initiative this exhibition came into being in the first place, the curator Maria Zerres, Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen for his opening speech, which so sensitively and appropriately introduced the work of Arnulf Rainer, and of course the entire team of DASMAXIMUM, not least Ksenija Protic, companion of Heiner Friedrich and deeply connected to DASMAXIMUM from the beginning, who in her introduction could not have more impressively pointed out the bridge from Heiner Friedrich's vision to the new exhibition.

From now on the Arnulf Rainer exhibition is open at our usual opening hours (Sat & Sun 12-18) at the museum DASMAXIMUM. It can be seen until the end of 2023.