Harald Falckenberg

Reissued: Aus dem Maschinenraum der Kunst. Aufzeichnungen eines Sammlers
Aufzeichnungen eines Sammlers
VOLUME 168

Studies and Reflections by a Defining Collector of Our Time

Harald Falckenberg was internationally renowned as one of the most acclaimed collectors of contemporary art. A generous patron, he focused on unconventional work, building a collection that is associated with names like John Bock, Andrea Fraser, Sarah Lucas, Thomas Hirschhorn, Paul McCarthy, Astrid Klein, Christoph Schlingensief, and Santiago Sierra. The defining feature shared by the creative approaches that attracted his insatiable curiosity is their transgression of the bounds of the socially permissible and expectable. Released in memory of the author, the new edition of the volume Im Maschinenraum der Kunst gathers the reflections and positions of a collector whose notes on contemporary art and the art world illustrate that he was keenly aware of the theoretical underpinnings of his activities. Falckenberg was less interested in the work of art as such or the contexts that art historians and scholars of culture might illuminate than in the artists and the social realities with which they engaged. 

The updated and enlarged new edition includes an afterword by Wolfgang Ullrich, a foreword by Larissa Falckenberg, and essays, added Harald Falckenberg’s death, on Monica Bonvicini, Philip Guston, Mike Kelley, Jon Kessler, Philippe Vandenberg, and Ralf Ziervogel.