Thirty outstanding works from the company’s collection will be on permanent display in Berlin. The permanent loan, initially set to last ten years, features significant works by 20th-century artists that were previously missing from the Nationalgalerie’s collection.

Fünf erste Werke von Max Bill, Adolf Fleischmann, Camille Graeser, Helga Philipp und Ulrike Rosenbach sind in der aktuellen Sammlungspräsentation zu sehen.

The presentation of the collection is enhanced by a powerful feminist perspective through Ulrike Rosenbach’s large-format black-and-white photograph “Art is a Criminal Action” (1972/96). The aspect of militant attack and the demonstrative dismantling of traditional images and role stereotypes is central to Rosenbach’s work.

With Camille Graeser and Max Bill, the collection now includes two key figures of the Zurich School of Concrete Art who were previously missing from the National Gallery’s collection. Both Graeser’s “harmonical construction” (1947/51) and Bill’s “Red Squares” (1946) are iconic paintings based on a strict grid structure applied to the picture plane according to mathematical principles.

Adolf Fleischmann’s “Triptych #505, #506, #507” (1961) is considered one of the artist’s major works. Engaging with Mondrian’s design principles and musical compositions, the painting presents a rhythmic structure of vertical bars that coalesce into a rich tapestry of color. The inclusion of a “Kinetic Object” (1971) by Helga Philipp aligns with one of the Neue Nationalgalerie’s collection priorities: to strengthen female voices that have been underrepresented to date. The object consists of interconnected, staggered Plexiglas panels that are reflected by a metal plate, thereby producing visual stimuli. (Text from the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin website)