From Modernism to Minimal Art

With about 100 works by 50 artists the exhibition in the Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen shows especially the ‘classical part’ of the Mercedes-Benz AG’s Collection including some works that have never been shown in public before. The Mercedes-Benz Art Collection started in 1977 and represents an important spectrum of major 20th century art developments and pictorial ideas in the field of Abstraction mainly, right down to the present day. It also contains about 30 sculptures, some realized in co-operation with the artists for company sites and also for public places.

The first, essentially pictorial thrust in the Art Collection related to artists from South Germany, teachers and pupils from the Stuttgart Academy like Adolf Hölzel, Oskar Schlemmer, Willi Baumeister and the Swiss artists Jean Arp and Max Bill. The common feature was their artistically motivated interest in an interdisciplinary dialogue between fine art, functional product design, architecture and graphic design after the Bauhaus. The Mercedes-Benz Art Collection is still committed to this exploratory artistic thinking, thinking that is always directed at people, their imaginations and their ability to innovate.