kunsthalle weishaupt

THE COLLECTORS

Collecting with Great Sensitivity

Die Sammler: Jutta und Siegfried Weishaupt
The collectors Jutta and Siegfried Weishaupt
 “I collect intuitively,” Siegfried Weishaupt once said. This is quite an understatement. The entrepreneur from Schwendi near Ulm has been collecting with great sensitivity for more than fifty years. Together with his wife Frau Jutta he has built up a collection with a strong individual profile.
It all began with Weishaupt’s connections to the Ulm School of Design (HfG). His father Max Weishaupt, founder of the business, established contact to the Ulm School in the early 1960s and commissioned the outstanding product designers Hans Gugelot and Hans Sukopp to work for his business, and later also the pioneering Swiss graphic designer Josef Müller-Brockmann. “Thus the Bauhaus and its clarity of design moved in with us,” Siegfried Weishaupt remembers. This also led to a special connection with Max Bill, founder director of the Ulm School. der HfG, and to his work as an artist.
Siegfried Weishaupt’s approach to art was greatly influenced by Josef Albers, who also taught in Ulm for a while. Over the following years, Weishaupt and his wife Jutta broadened out beyond geometrical and “concrete” art and became interested in American abstract expressionism (such as Rothko), then Rauschenberg, whose work was highly influential, and then Pop art and other contemporary movements in art.

THE COLLECTION

Colour and Light Are the Coordinates

In the mid-1960s Siegfried Weishaupt purchased his first work of art, thereby laying the foundation stone for a passion for collecting that has now not only lasted more than five decades but also become more intense. It began with a fascination for geometrical and concrete art, and a love of clarity of form and bright colour is the foundation of the collection. At the same time these coordinates enable the collectors to experiment with new ideas.
Today the Siegfried and Jutta Weishaupt Collection with its many hundreds of works is one of the most significant private collections of European and American art since the 1960s. The opening of kunsthalle weishaupt in 2007 has made the collection accessible to the public, with varying selections of works.

THE FOCUS OF THE COLLECTION

Geometrical Concrete Art

Josef Albers, Homage to the Square 'Opal', 1964, Öl auf Holzfaserplatte, 100 x 100 cm

Max Bill, Diagonal-Horizontal-Quadrat mit verwanderten Ecken, 1960/1974, Öl auf Leinwand, diagonal 144 cm

Günter Fruhtrunk, Grosse Kadenz, 1972, Acryl auf Leinwand, 151 x 212 cm

Camille Graeser, Komplementär-Relation I, 1965, Öl auf Leinwand, 90 x 90 cm

Verena Loewensberg, ohne Titel, 1967, Öl auf Leinwand, 101 x 101 cm

Paul Richard Lohse, Neun horizontale und neun vertikale Farbreihen, 1950/1985, Öl auf Leinwand, 120 x 120 cm

Victor Vasarely, Zoeld-KZ, 1967-1973, Acryl auf Leinwand, 200 x 200 cm

Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Komposition Nr. 210 , 1958, Öl auf Leinwand, 130 x 100 cm

With Max Bill as founder director, teachers like Josef Albers and Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, and students like Almir Mavignier, the Ulm School of Design (1954–1968) enabled direct contact to renowned protagonists of concrete art.
The aim to express a scientifically founded exploration of colour and form in painting and sculpture led to a broad range of artistic approaches culminating in the phenomena of Op art.
Significant works by the artists mentioned above and a large number of works by further representatives of this movement form the backbone of the collection. Among them are works by Hans Arp, Ulrich Erben, Günter Fruhtrunk, Rupprecht Geiger, Camille Graeser, Auguste Herbin, Verena Loewensberg, Richard Paul Lohse, Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, and others.

ZERO and Its Circle

Enrico Castellani, Superficie Rossa, 2007, Acryl auf Leinwand, 100 x 100 cm

Piero Dorazio, Impasse Turchino, 1976/1977, Öl auf Leinwand, 220 x 250 cm

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio, 1963, Öl auf Leinwand, 178 x 123 cm

Graubner Gotthard, Nocen, 1991, Öl und Acryl auf Leinwand auf Synthetikwatte, 200 x 200 x 20 cm

Yves Klein, Monochrome Bleu, 1959, Farbpigment auf Leinwand auf Hartfaserplatte, 195 x 130 cm

Heinz Mack, Doppelflügel, 1964-1972, Aluminiumgitter vor Stahlblech auf Holz, 198 x 130 x 15 cm

Otto Piene, ohne Titel, 1959/1960, Öl auf Leinwand, 80 x 100 cm

Günther Uecker, Ecke, 1974, Holz, Leinwand, Nägel, 200 x 200 x 10 cm

In 1958 Heinz Mack and Otto Piene founded the ZERO group in Düsseldorf, joined a short time later by Günther Uecker. The starting point was the idea of a zero state that art had reached after the Second World War and that now made a completely new start both possible and necessary. In particular materials and techniques provided new opportunities, whereby kinetics, light and the effects of colour played a major role.
Alongside representative works by the three main ZERO members and other German artists, the Collection includes works by renowned international artists such as Lucio Fontana, Piero Dorazio, Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Jef Verheyen, Pol Bury, Jan J. Schoonhoven, Jesús Rafael Soto, Victor Vasarely, and many more.

American Art Since the 1950s

Jean-Michel Basquiat, 6 Months, 1987, Acryl und Ölkreide auf Leinwand, 247 x 178 cm
Willem De Kooning, Woman in the Water, 1972, Öl auf Leinwand, 151 x 137 cm

Keith Haring, ohne Titel, 1986, Acryl und Öl auf Leinwandplane, 234 x 488 cm
Roy Lichtenstein, Modern Painting with Wedge, 1967, Öl und Magna auf Leinwand, 87 x 125 cm
Robert Rauschenberg, Summer Rental, 1960, Öl und Papier auf Leinwand, 178 x 137 cm
Mark Rothko, ohne Titel (No. 14), 1963, Öl auf Leinwand, 175 x 127 cm
Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1964, synthetisches Polymer, Siebdruck auf Leinwand, 208 x 208 cm
Tom Wesselmann, The Lake, 1994, Öl auf Aluminium, 239 x 439 x 32

Art history was never the guide for Siegfried and Jutta Weishaupt’s collecting activities, and yet the Collection holds representative works from the most important American movements in post-war art.
Willem de Kooning is a significant exponent of abstract expressionism, while Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella stand for colour field and hard edge painting, and Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt for minimal art.
By purchasing a combine painting by Robert Rauschenberg in 1983, the Collection opened up to a degree of figuration, without which the colourful Pop art of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein or Tom Wesselmann would be just as unlikely as more recent forms of expression in the works of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Sculpture

John Chamberlain, The Devil and the Deap Blue Sea, 1983, Lackierter und verchromter Stahl, 208 x 273 x 107
Mark di Suvero, Quantum, 1986/1987, Stahl, 405 x 610 x 535 cm
Liam Gillick, Complete Bin Development, 2013, pulverbeschichtetes Aluminium, Plexiglas, 6-teilig, je 300 x 150 x 150 cm
Keith Haring, Red Dog for Landois, 1987, Cortenstahl, lackiert, 460 x 620 x 520 cm
Robert Indiana, Love, 1966/1998, mehrfarbiges Aluminium, 366 x 366 x 183 cm
Donald Judd, ohne Titel, 1988, Kupfer, grünes Plexiglas, je 16 x 69 x 61 (gesamt 311)
Wolfgang Laib, Treppe, 2003, schwarzer burmesischer Lack auf Holz, 210 x 150 x 55 cm
Frank Stella, The Crotch, 1988, Mischtechnik auf Aluminium, 521 x 250 x 123 cm

Since 2009 Keith Haring‘s Red Dog for Landois (1987) has been standing in front of the kunsthalle weishaupt, as an example of one part of the collection that it not so easily displayed inside, as a comprehensive 2012 exhibition entitled Sculptures and Reliefs very well illustrated.
Every movement or style represented in the collection also includes sculptures, with some big names like Jean Tinguely, John Chamberlain, Liam Gillick, Bernar Venet, Anthony Caro, Tony Cragg, Richard Serra, and more. While some small sculptures, such as an Alexander Calder mobile, can be regularly shown in a private context, many others are on display on the company premises and in buildings there. Monumental works are often made for exterior spaces, where they can be best appreciated.

Contemporary Positions Since the Turn of the Century

Stéphane Dafflon, AST207, 2012, Acryl auf Leinwand, 200 x 190 cm

Philippe Decrauzat, ohne Titel, 2012, Acryl auf Leinwand, 214 x 134 cm

Henrik Eiben, Voyager, 2013, Leder, Stoff, Styrodur, Holz, 138 x 210 x 20 cm

Jürgen Klauke, Wackelkontakt, 2003/2006, Schwarz-Weiß-Fotoarbeit, 180 x 240 cm

Robert Longo, Untitled (The Face), 2002, Kohle und Grafit auf Papier, 168 x 275 cm

Gerold Miller, instant vision 151, Aluminium lackiert, 179 x 148,5 x 12 cm

Markus Oehlen, V.H.S., 2004, Lack auf Leinwand, 270 x 500 cm

Vincent Szarek, The Meaning of Life, 2010, goldene Metallpailletten, 178 x 305 cm

A specific focus makes for the general direction of the Collection, but openness and an interest in how art is developing today keep the Collection alive. The Collection thus also holds very contemporary works by younger artists, many of them already established names. These works address the themes of colour, contrast, clear lines and simple form.
On the one hand these themes are explored in painting, as in the work of Philippe Decrauzat and Stéphane Dafflon. On the other hand, new approaches to technique and material are also represented, and materials like varnish, aluminium, steel and fiberglass are increasingly used, as in the work of Gerold Miller and Vincent Szarek.
Outside of this thematic range, works like the perfect photorealist charcoal drawings of Robert Longo have their own very special fascination.