Church for Sale

On its 25th anniversary, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin shows an exhibition that reflects on collecting in public institutions on the one hand and in private collections on the other.

The artists featured in this exhibition consider art to be a political activity against ubiquitous violence and aggression, exclusion and the lack of protection of the common goods essential to life. In their works, they explore the vulnerability of human existence in its social and cultural context and examine power structures in the private and public sphere.

The Church for Sale exhibition takes its name from a series of works by Edgar Arceneaux. Created in 2013, they depict billboards from the bankruptcy-threatened city of Detroit advertising the sale of church properties and, along with them, the community-forming meeting rooms they provided. In addition to works from the Nationalgalerie Collection and a few other loans, the exhibition features works from the Haubrok Collection which focuses on the conceptual trends in contemporary art. This marks a continuation of the collaboration between the Haubrok Foundation and the Nationalgalerie which began in 2009.

The architecture conceived by b+ (Arno Brandlhuber, Florian Jaritz, Gregor Zorzi) addresses the exhibition’s themes with critical reference to the development plan drawn up for the area around the Hamburger Bahnhof and to the continuing lack of clarity regarding the future of the ensemble of buildings used by the Museum für Gegenwart which consists of the historic main building and the Rieckhallen. The two-dimensional line arising from the alignment of the adjacent buildings’ boundary in the development plan is translated into a three-dimensional wall that divides the historic hall in two along its north-south axis. The wall has been constructed from a reusable material commonly used to enclose building sites. This architectural intervention can be understood as a reference to the fact that the sustainable safeguarding of the museum as a public space and a place to experience art, enjoy reflection and polyphonic discussions that is accessible to all cannot be taken for granted.

With works by Edgar Arceneaux, Siah Armajani, Christoph Büchel, Tom Burr, Claire Fontaine, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Emily Jacir, Carolyn Lazard, Park McArthur, Rodney McMillian, Bruce Nauman, Cady Noland, Ruben Ochoa, Santiago Sierra, Kara Walker

Curated by Gabriele Knapstein, Assistant Curator: Franziska Lietzmann

A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin supported by the Freunde der Nationalgalerie.

Further exhibitions
Nation, Narration, Narcosis: Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories
A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in dialogue with the collections of Galeri Nasional Indonesia (Jakarta, Indonesia), MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai, Thailand), and Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and initiated and funded by the Goethe Institut.
November 28, 2021–July 3, 2022

Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021: Lamin Fofana. Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff. Sandra Mujinga. Sung Tieu
September 16, 2021–February 27, 2022

Take Me to the River: An exhibition by the Goethe-Institut and Prince Claus Fund
November 30–December 12, 2021