Thomas Krens, director of the Guggenheim Foundation since 1988, talks about the exhibition “The Guggenheim Collection” at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, and the plans for a Frank Gehry-designed new museum in Abu Dhabi/United Arab Emirates.
Following the tradition established by the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum building in New York Thomas Krens has commissioned many of the world’s leading architects to design additional Guggenheim museums in Europe and the U.S. In a separate show (The Guggenheim Architecture) that will be held on the ground floor of the atrium hall of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle from 25 August – 12 November 2006, architectural models and plans of projects and competitions will be exhibited. Architects: Asymptote, Shigeru Ban, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Frank O. Gehry, Richard Gluckman, Vittorio Gregotti, Charles Gwathmey, Zaha Hadid, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Enrique Norten, Jean Nouvel, Frank Lloyd Wright. KAH Bonn, Bonn/Germany. Press conference, July 20, 2006. Part 2/2.
Following the tradition established by the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum building in New York Thomas Krens has commissioned many of the world’s leading architects to design additional Guggenheim museums in Europe and the U.S. In a separate show (The Guggenheim Architecture) that will be held on the ground floor of the atrium hall of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle from 25 August – 12 November 2006, architectural models and plans of projects and competitions will be exhibited. Architects: Asymptote, Shigeru Ban, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Frank O. Gehry, Richard Gluckman, Vittorio Gregotti, Charles Gwathmey, Zaha Hadid, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Enrique Norten, Jean Nouvel, Frank Lloyd Wright. KAH Bonn, Bonn/Germany. Press conference, July 20, 2006. Part 2/2.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00 So, I remember something when I first came to the Guggenheim that Seymour Slive, who
00:06 was for many years the director of the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, said to me that you
00:14 build a great museum by acquiring great collections.
00:19 Not only does the Guggenheim have the good fortune to, under the umbrella of the Foundation,
00:25 to bring these great collections together, but we've also had an active acquisitions
00:31 program as a result of our international network.
00:36 The commitment that was made, or the agreement that was made with Basque Country in the early
00:43 1990s has produced since then an extraordinary amount of money to buy major works.
00:53 And we are about to celebrate our 10th anniversary in Bilbao in October of next year.
01:00 And we are in perhaps the envious position of the funds that we've had available to build
01:05 a collection in Bilbao can more than fill the Guggenheim in Bilbao at this point.
01:12 And we are still a young institution.
01:15 One of the attractions of our association with Deutsche Bank is that we've been able
01:20 to work with some of the greatest artists of our time on major commissions with that
01:26 funding provided by Deutsche Bank.
01:28 And the Guggenheim has found a way, in close cooperation and thanks to the generosity of
01:33 Deutsche Bank, to add those major works to the Guggenheim collection, some of which you
01:39 will see in the exhibition here today.
01:44 A great series of paintings by James Rosenquist, also by a great installation by Gerhard Richter,
01:53 Hannah Darbovin, Lawrence Wiener, Rachel Whiteread, Bill Viola, among others.
01:59 They're not all in this exhibition, but we've had an opportunity to commission great works
02:06 that can be used in the Guggenheim museums and presented around the world.
02:11 So what this represents for me is a kind of, I've been at the Guggenheim for approximately
02:18 18 years now, that this is a kind of summing up of a tremendous amount of energy and creativity
02:27 that has involved, I mean, literally hundreds of people, from our curators to our staff
02:33 to our board of trustees to our friends and collaborators around the world.
02:39 I'm particularly grateful to Wenzel and his team, to Peter Neuwe from the Museum of Applied
02:46 Arts in Vienna, who is the curator for the architecture of the Guggenheim exhibition.
02:52 I've known Peter for 15 years.
02:56 He started out as one of my fiercest critics and has become one of my best friends.
03:01 So he also understands, I think, the importance of architecture and building and growth as
03:12 integral to the health of our system of cultural exchange.
03:17 So all of this comes together, I think, in one grand story here in Bonn.
03:22 I'm really delighted to be here today.
03:25 Obviously the weather couldn't be more perfect.
03:29 I have to tell you, I don't think that the installation could have been done better.
03:34 The only thing that's lacking, perhaps, is another 60 or 70,000 square meters of space.
03:42 That's not square feet, that's square meters.
03:45 Another 60 or 70,000 square meters of space would have come in handy for this exhibition.
03:52 But sadly, you can't have everything.
03:55 Thank you very much.
03:57 [Applause]
04:03 Well, last, two weeks ago on July 8th, the Guggenheim Foundation signed a memorandum
04:15 of understanding with the government of Abu Dhabi to build a new museum designed by Frank Gehry.
04:25 This museum is scheduled to be perhaps a little bit bigger than 30,000 square meters.
04:34 And it is also part of what I regard as a very ambitious cultural development project
04:44 that will include four museums, a performing arts center, and a Biennale Park.
04:51 We've been working with the Abu Dhabi government since, actually about a year ago,
04:59 almost a year ago, on developing a cultural master plan.
05:05 And quite frankly, a project of this scale and this ambition,
05:14 which is very much and very authoritatively on the road to being completed
05:23 in a reasonably short period of time, is a unique opportunity for the Guggenheim
05:31 for several reasons.
05:34 First of all is that there has been a good deal of internal examination and discussion
05:44 inside the Guggenheim over the last few years about our international direction.
05:51 And we undertook to develop a formal strategic plan that was unanimously adopted
05:59 by the Board of Trustees that recognized the importance of our international expansion.
06:06 And specifically this strategic plan identified four regions that were of interest to us.
06:16 Since we were already well established in the United States and Europe,
06:20 our priorities were for Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.
06:29 And so we were in a position to be thinking about an association in the Middle East,
06:38 and that happened to coincide with the long-term vision of the government of Abu Dhabi
06:46 to create for the first time a cultural center in the Middle East of a cluster of institutions
06:57 that by definition and right from the beginning would aspire to the same levels of quality
07:06 and standard that are reflected by many of the great cultural capitals of Europe.
07:14 And as you probably know, and it's inevitable, the resources do seem to be there in Abu Dhabi.
07:22 So this is the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, who is the Crown Prince,
07:31 the Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority,
07:37 the Chairman of the Tourist Development Investment Corporation.
07:42 Sheikh Sultan bin Tanun is the person that is implementing the project.
07:50 And I think it's going to be an extraordinary thing.
07:54 There is a representative of the Abu Dhabi Tourist Authority here today,
08:01 Osama al-Rifahi, sitting in the front row.
08:05 And I'm sure that at some time in today's question and answer session,
08:09 or after this question and answer session, he'd also be happy to talk with you.
08:14 But yes, this is a very solid project.
08:17 It's definitely going forward.
08:21 The Chairman and six of the Guggenheim trustees were in Abu Dhabi on July 8th
08:31 for the signing of this binding MOU.
08:35 And we could not be more excited, and we're looking forward to doing something truly great
08:42 and spectacular and different with Frank Gehry.