The Danner Rotunda – the Jewelry Space at Pinakothek der Moderne

Opens March 13, 2020

New curation by Mikiko Minewaki, Hiko Mizuno College, Tokyo, and Hans Stofer, Burg Giebichenstein, Halle and Alexander Blank, Munich

After Karl Fritsch’s colorful concept for the Danner Rotunda and the one in subdued white by Otto Künzli – both globally active jewelry artists and professors of goldsmithing – it is time, as we fast approach the 2020s, once again to submit the Danner Rotunda to a creative and critical new curation. It is an occasion to review elective affinities, present newly acquired or gifted objects, and surprise and thrill viewers with undreamt-of, fascinating compositions for the third time after the first curation of the Danner Rotunda by Hermann Jünger back in 2004.

For this reason, the Danner Rotunda will remain closed to the public from January 21, 2019 through to March 13, 2020.

Mikiko Minewaki is a lecturer at Hiko Mizuno College in Tokyo, who was invited by Die Neue Sammlung in 2015 to hold her exhibition “Harebutai” – which featured her students and was realized in collaboration with Professor Kimiaki Kageyama – at Pinakothek der Moderne, Professor Hans Stofer, who was head of the Jewelry class at the Royal College of Art and Design in London, was recently appointed professor at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle, and Alexander Blank, a jewelry artist from Munich. The three jewelry artists of international renown are members of a younger generation and we are delighted that they will be taking up our invitation to re-interpret the Danner Rotunda. This will be the first time that a curator team – spanning the worlds of Asia and Europe – will be selecting the objects. It will be exciting to see the images that arise from what is in itself always fascinating task and to which we invite guest curators roughly every five years.

At the same time, we are happy to report that we have persuaded Munich-based Flavia Thumshirn, a lighting designer of world-wide repute, to develop a new lighting concept for the jewelry space at Pinakothek der Moderne. The changeover from halogen lamps to LED technology will take center stage in the planning. Together with designer Yang Liu, who lives and works in Berlin and who was applauded for her light guidance system for Dresden’s Albertinum, an installation featuring neon writing will be created that will quite literally present the entrance area of the Danner Rotunda in a new light.

None of this would have been possible without the close collaboration with Benno und Therese Danner’sche Kunstgewerbestiftung, or Danner-Stiftung for short, founded in 1920 and at home in Munich. We are delighted that the re-opening of the Danner Rotunda, planned for March 13, 2020, will kick off the program of events celebrating the foundation’s 100th anniversary that will take place in the course of the year.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a PUBLICATION brought out by Arnoldsche Art Publishers and designed by Frederik Linke, Zurich.

Pinakothek der Moderne Exhibition Starting March 14, 2020