HAMBURG.- For the first time world-wide, the die Julia Stoschek Collection has gone on show in a museum context and outside the private home of the collector in Düsseldorf. Across a total space of over 2,000 sq. m. works by over 50 artists from this very young private collection is on display in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg.

The exhibition title of “I want to see how you see” is taken from the work of the same name by Pipilotti Rist (2003). The exhibition focuses on pieces on film and video, as is the case for the entire Julia Stoschek Collection. They are rounded out by sculptures (e.g., by Nandipha Mntambo), photographic works (e.g., by Thomas Demand, Taryn Simon, Thomas Ruff) and installations (e.g., by Jeppe Hein).

The exhibition takes up the Deichtorhallen tradition of presenting major collections. In this case, the collection is one of the most important sets of media-influenced art in Germany, something no doubt related to the age of the collector (34). At the same time, the show links back to the “Fire, Earth, Water, Air” exhibition, organized at the Deichtorhallen in 1993 as part of the Mediale and the first display of media-influenced art at the Deichtorhallen.

The exhibition at the Deichtorhallen features some classics of video art, such as Marina Abramovic’s “Art must be beautiful, Artist must be beautiful” dating from 1975-6, Vito Acconci’s “Openings” (1970) and Chris Burdens “Shoot” (1971), but the majority of the works were produced since 2000. They range from more lyrical pieces such as Heike Baranowsky’s “Mondfahrt” via elaborately animated films like Björk’s “Wanderlust” in 3D through to marvelous installations such as those by Monica Bonvicini, Anthony McCall and Nathalie Djurberg.

The Julia Stoschek Collection is a private collection of contemporary art that focuses on media and video art, installations and photography. The collection, which is made up of about 400 works, includes, among others, art by Bruce Naumann and Marina Abramovic via Doug Aitken and Paul Pfeiffer through to Monica Bonvicini, Mika Rottenberg, Heike Baranowsky and Isaac Julien.

Julia Stoschek was born in 1975 and is a partner in the Brose Group, which produces automotive components. She studied Business Administration and since graduation in 2001 has devoted herself completely to art. Since 2004 she has been on the Board of Directors of the KW-Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. In 2007, she was appointed a voting member of the acquisitions commission of the Trustee Committee on Media and Performance Art at MoMA, Museum of Modern Art.

The collection is housed in the former halls of the Conzen frame factory. All the floors of the building, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007, were specially converted by architects Kuhn Malvezzi to meet the needs of the collection. The building includes two floor set aside as exhibition areas for public presentations of the Julia Stoschek Collection.

For the opening exhibition entitled “Destroy, she said” Julia Stoschek assembled about 40 international artistic positions that mainly concentrated on the themes of construction/destruction, interior/exterior.

The main theme of the second presentation “Number Two: Fragile” was the aspect of corporeality in video, installations and photo art, something with which above all representatives of Body Art and Performance Art have experimented ever since the 1960s/1970s. Self-staging, pain, transformation, corporeality in the sense of sculptural qualities that can be experienced as a real outer shape, not to mention fragility in the literal sense were all the main areas illuminated by the selection of 54 works. Within the exhibition, each of the total of 30 artists could be read as an individual position, as usually there were several works by each.

The exhibition that opened on Oct. 17, 2009 and entitled 100 Years (version #1, Düsseldorf), which was the first collaboration with the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York and the international performance biennial Performa 09, New York, documented the last century in the history of performance. The exhibition, which toured not only Düsseldorf but as of November the P.S.1/MoMA in New York and will move to other international venues, is conceived as a research project, that in the context of the Performa 09 and on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Futurist Manifesto offers an overview of the most important actions, happenings and performances of the last 100 years. Parallel to “100 Years (version #1, Düsseldorf)”, a performance program entitled NUMBER THREE: HERE AND NOW will take place at regular intervals on the second exhibition floor. Thus far, the plan is for performances by: Marina Abramovic, Allora & Calzadilla, Jerome Bel, John Bock, Keren Cytter, Bert Didillon, Stefan Ettlinger, Andrea Fraser, Dara Friedman, Simon Fujiwara, Manuel Graf, Christian Jankowski, Joan Jonas, Sharon Hayes, Eunhye Hwang, Ragnar Kjartansson, Andreas Korte, Michalis Nicolaides, Jen DeNike, Cornelius Quabeck, Xavier Le Roy, Jimmy Robert, Tino Sehgal, Annette Sonnewend & Michael Strasser, Nico Vascellari, Sven Vieweg, Tris Vonna Michell, and Andrea Zittel.

The exhibition at Hamburg’ Deichtorhallen is the world’s first extensive presentation of the JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION in a museum context.