September 14 2007 to August 31 2008
Infinite Space Expands
Opening exhibition

It was a long way from the decision on the site (1990) to the architecture competition (1997); from the presentation of the finished construction plan by architect Peter Zumthor (2001) to the completion of the building. Now, it is finished: a museum which totally relates to its historical site, which consistently focuses all activities on its collection, which asks about common characteristics and interactions of significantly different things from the history of our art and culture, in order to enable us to imagine the invisible in the visible. Kolumba wants to recall: A museum is a place of slowness, of concentration, of playful-creative analysis, of becoming curious about a universe of things that one did not yet see in this way. It is a cornucopia of unspent, amazing, surprisingly new and likewise surprisingly unfamiliar old views of the human understanding of the world in individual pictures. Kolumba wants to open up a panorama for that »which our eyes think« (Paul Cézanne), which our vision feels, which our feeling hears, which our listening says, which our words conceal. Since 1992, the »Museum of Contemplation« has been tested in many exhibitions. Now, it can develop in the new building. The largest room of the building gives an insight into the city's history of two thousand years as a memorial landscape. It houses an outstanding archaeological excavation, Roman, Romanesque and Gothic foundations, namely the ruins of the Church St.Kolumba, which was destroyed in World War II, and the functionally independent Chapel of Madonna in the Ruins. Sixteen galleries offer various qualities in terms of incoming daylight, size and proportions. They all share the same plain, yet sensuous material quality, against which the artworks stand out. As a museum of shadow and light, the museum concept develops with the alternating times of the day and the changing seasons.

Works by Josef Albers, Monika Bartholomé, Georg Baumgarten, Joseph Beuys, Heinz Breloh, Karl Burgeff, Eduardo Chillida, Heinrich Commans, Rudolf de Crignis, Herbert Falken, Jeremias Geisselbrunn, Raimund Girke, Rebecca Horn, Roni Horn, Leiko Ikemura, Franz Ittenbach, Alexej von Jawlensky, Leonhard Kern, Konrad Klapheck, Heinrich Küpper, Jannis Kounellis, Wolfgang Laib, Stefan Lochner, August Macke, Gerhard Marcks, Joseph Marioni, Agnes Martin, Duane Michals, Chris Newman, Jürgen Paatz, Georges Rouault, Hermann Stenner, Antoni Tápies, Paul Thek, Peter Tollens, Arndt van Tricht, Andy Warhol, Gert H. Wollheim

(Exhibition documentation: Auswahl zwei)

Art museum of the
Archdiocese of Cologne