ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1999 in atria 1 and 2 of the main building and as a collectors' museum cooperated with the internationally renowned collections FER, Frieder Burda, Grässlin, Siegfried Weishaupt. In 2004, Boros Collection joined while Frieder Burda decided to go one's own way.
Since 2005, ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art also cooperates with VAF-Stiftung/MART, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, and Francesca von Habsburgs Collection, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. The works of these partners are exhibited in a 7000 square-meter space arranged along collection and thematic concentrations.
The high quality and diversity of the participating collections make ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art an internationally renowned space for confrontation with contemporary art: path-breaking European and American works provide insight into the artistic developments from 1960 to the present and clarify important aspects of contemporary art as well as socially relevant issues of media development. Major special exhibitions and smaller presentations in the project spaces of the museum, which offer a glimpse into current artistic and cultural tendencies, maintain a charged relationship to the larger collection exhibitions and thus also form a connection to the presentations of the ZKM | Media Museum.
The ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art hereby deals with classical museum themes, but also presents current aspects of international artistic production and works academically in publications. Our institution's range of target groups is accordingly large and aims at classical museum visitors through to children and students who become acquainted with the artworks through special programs and guided tours from the ZKM | Museum Communication. Highlights of past years were, among others, the exhibition Light Art from Artificial Light (2005/06), Imagination Becomes Reality in Cooperation with the Sammlung Goetz (2007), Paul Thek in the Context of Today's Contemporary Art in cooperation with the Sammlung Falckenberg
(2007/08), Vertrautes Terrain - Contemporary Art in/about Germany (2008) and Medium Religion (2008/09).
zkm.de