Private/Corporate VI

The Mercedes-Benz Art Collection has invited Argentine husband-and-wife collectors Juan and Patricia Vergez for the sixth of its Private/Corporate exhibition series. Their high-calibre private collection of contemporary Argentine and international art is housed in a former writing materials factory in Buenos Aires. Representative works will travel to Berlin for the Mercedes-Benz co-operation to initiate a dialogue with selected classical and current works from the Mercedes-Benz Collection. The exhibition will not simply give some insight into Argentine art from the 1960s to the present day, but will also investigate its vital links with the international art scene.

The central concept behind the Private/Corporate series of exhibitions is to look at our own collection pieces through the eyes of a different but related collecting perspective. Collaborative presentations featured art works from the collections of Paul Maenz (2002), Ileana Sonnabend (2003), Heliod Spiekermann (2005), Anupam Poddar (2007) and Björn Lafrenz (2008). The exhibition planned in collaboration with the Juan & Patricia Vergez collection combines artworks belonging to five thematic groups: Concept Art, painting, critical trends, minimalism and performative art styles. Different facets of contemporary conceptual art are represented by the work of artists such as Absalon, Martin Creed and Joseph Kosuth. By setting up a dialogue of movements in painting from the 1960s to the present day, the exhibition brings together works by Emilio Renart, Enrico Castellani, Adolf Fleischmann und Michel Majerus that are separated in time by as much as four decades. The works of Henrik Olesen, Alfredo Jaar, Patricia London Ante Paris and Ana Mendieta center on political and sociocritical movements. The objects and sculptures by Katja Strunz, Sylvie Fleury und Manuela Leinhoß are constructive and structural in nature. Contemporary minimalist art is represented by the art of Tomás Saraceno, Krysten Cunningham, Kirstin Arndt and Ossi Fink. The exhibition concludes with the interactive and performative installations of Rirkrit Tiravanija und John Bock.

From the Vergez Collection: John Bock (D), Martin Creed (GB), Flavia Da Rin (RA), Leandro Erlich (RA), Olafur Eliasson (DK), Elmgren und Dragset (DK und N), Alberto Heredia (RA), Gregor Hildebrandt (D), Alfredo Jaar (RCH), Daniel Jackson (USA), Manuela Leinhoß (D), Daniel Lergon (D), Michel Majerus (L), Ana Mendieta (C), Ernest Neto (BR), Henrik Olesen (DK), Gabriel Orozco (MEX), Patricia Pearson (RA), Alfredo Prior (RA), Tomás Saraceno (RA), Emilio Renart (RA), Rirkrit Tiravanija (T)