Public Impact Through Private Initiative:

Foundation for Art and Culture

Launched as a private sector initiative in 1986, the Foundation for Art and Culture/NPO, Bonn, has since served as a think tank, and as a driver and organiser of activities embracing the entire spectrum of contemporary visual art. Its main focus lies in the conception and staging of exhibitions, curating collections, holding public discussions on cultural policy and shaping the public space, be it in Bonn, Berlin, Duisburg or Salzburg. The overarching objective of the Foundation is to foster art and culture as an essential, stimulating and integral part of our civic society, to promote discourse and to deliver on our mission statement of seeking to “help shape society”, as the great Joseph Beuys once formulated it.

For an overview of our projects, which can be filtered according to theme or venue, please click here.

  • Diversity United, Opening, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

  • Light and Transparency, Bonn Cathedral

  • The new MKM, Extension by Herzog & de Meuron

  • Andreas Gursky, MKM

  • Diversity United, Opening, Tempelhof Airport, Berlin

  • Hanne Darboven, MKM

  • Deutschland 8, Beijing

  • Erwin Wurm, MKM

  • Art from the Holocaust, Berlin

  • Luther and the Avantgarde, Wittenberg

  • Foto.Kunst.Boulevard, Berlin / Oliver Rath

  • Deutschland 8, Beijing

  • Rolf-Gunter Dienst, MKM

  • Art and Press, Berlin

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Main activities: Exhibitions, a private museum and art in public space

Exhibitions

The Foundation has staged landmark thematic exhibitions, showcased the art scene of one specific country and mounted solo and group exhibitions, featuring among others Tony Cragg, Anselm Kiefer, Gilbert & George, K.O. Götz, Jörg Immendorff, Markus Lüpertz, Gerhard Richter, Sean Scully, Günther Uecker, Hanne Darboven, Andreas Gursky and many other artists. Among the most ambitious projects were the exhibitions “60 Years. 60 Works. Art from the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 2009” and “ARTandPRESS” in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau, “CHINA 8″, held simultaneously in nine museums across the Ruhr region, and “Art from the Holocaust. 100 Works from the Yad Vashem Collection”, presented in Berlin’s German Historical Museum or “Luther and the Avantgarde” in the Old Prison in Wittenberg. The exhibition “Deutschland 8 – German Art in China” in Beijing attracted over 650,000 people in just six weeks. Actually, “Diversity United“, showcasing the vitality and diversity of the European art scene, is attracting international attention; after its first venue at the Tempelhof Airport Berlin it has just been opened in The New Tretyakov Gallery Moscow and is supposed to move on to Paris in 2022.