By Rachel Mayo, to Museum Spotlight Europe
Art museums in Europe aren’t just about the wonders of the Renaissance. Europe has some of the most important contemporary art museums in the world and most European countries have a number of museums to choose from. Below, we’ve put together a short guide to some of the museums with contemporary art collections that you shouldn’t miss. To show no favorites, we’ve arranged them alphabetically:
Brandhorst, Munich
We start our tour in Munich. The marvelous museum for the Brandhorst Collection focuses on selected works from the modern era up to the second half of the 20th century such as those by Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, and other artists considered to be the trailblazers of modern art.
The museum displays a comprehensive selection of about 100 works by Andy Warhol and more than 60 works by Cy Twombly (known for his graffiti-like scribbles). In fact, the Brandhorst has the largest Twombly collection outside the US. Other modern artists represented in the collection are Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Georg Baselitz, Francesco Clemente, Bruce Nauman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mike Kelley, John Chamberlain, Robert Gober, Eric Fischl, Alex Katz and Damien Hirst.
The Brandhorst is one of the few museums to stage special exhibitions through the winter. This year, from December 6 through April, 2019, the Brandhorst will feature an exhibit on the American artist Alex Katz, a pioneer in pop art. Aside from visual arts, the museum also houses literature with a collection of 112 illustrated books of Pablo Picasso. Latest acquisitions include video works by Isaac Julien and an installation by Walter De Maria in the nearby Türkentor.
Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, Italy
The Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, or Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, is the museum of contemporary art of Turin, and host to one of the most updated Italian collections of contemporary art. Its building is the former residence of the Savoy royal family, originally built in the 11th century and re-opened as a contemporary art center in 1984.
The museum’s permanent collection primarily covers artistic movements such as the Arte Povera, the Transavanguardia, Minimalism, Body Art, and Land Art, as well as recent trends in international art.
Along with the collection, visitors can also view artistic films, videos, and documentaries by renowned artists such as Bill Viola, Vanessa Beecroft, Vito Acconci, Pipilotti Rist, Joseph Beuys, and others.
Aside from exhibitions, the museum also organizes guided tours and learning activities. And as if great art isn’t enough, visitors can enjoy special meals at the Michelin-starred restaurant.
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
Completed in 1980, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is known for its iconic and innovative design. From James Bond movies to Dan Brown thrillers, the museum is a frequent backdrop to add a “contemporary” aspect to a story. Considered to be one of the largest museums in Spain, the sculpture-like structure is designed by American architect Frank Gehry, who was labeled in 2010 as “the most important architect of our age.”
The museum has three levels, organized around the atrium which functions as an axis. Interconnected by curved walkways, titanium and glass elevators, and staircases, from the Atrium, the visitor can access the 20 galleries that comprise a total of 257,000 square feet of exhibition space.
In its first three years of operation, the museum has attracted almost 4 million visitors and had continually been generating revenue not just for the museum itself, but also for the whole of Bilbao.
The museum’s main attraction are the “large-scale, site-specific works and installations by contemporary artists.” One of its unforgettable shows was in 1997, a showcase of 300 pieces that traced the history of 20th-century art from Cubism to new media art titled, “The Guggenheim Museums and the Art of This Century.”
The museum’s national collection includes works by modern and contemporary Basque and Spanish artists, including Antonio Saura,Eduardo Chillida, Antoni Tàpies, and Juan Muñoz.
Its acquisition program, on the other hand, has focused on art from mid-century to the present
with signature works by leading artists, such as Joseph Beuys, Jeff Koons, and Robert Rauschenberg, and the highlight of the collection, and the museum’s only permanent exhibit, The Matter of Time, a series of weathering steel sculptures designed by Richard Serra.
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany
The Hamburger Kunsthalle is one of the largest museums in Germany (which is quite a statement in itself!) The museum is divided into four sections: the Gallery of Old Masters, the Gallery of 19th-century Art, the Gallery of Classical Modernism and the Gallery of Contemporary Art. The Gallery of Contemporary Art is known for its international contemporary art collections and exhibitions which include post-1950 Pop Art, conceptual art, video art and photography.
Among the artists whose works are exhibited in the Gallery are Joseph Beuys, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Rebecca Horn, Yves Klein, Kitty Kraus, Hermann Nitsch, George Segal, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol, and others.
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
Otterlo is a beautiful village of only 2,500 people, and yet it is home to an amazing collection of contemporary art. Opened in 1938, the Kröller-Müller Museum was founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller. With about 20,000 works of art, it includes the second-largest collection of paintings—over 40! — by Vincent van Gogh in the world. Other masters included in the collection are Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, and Piet Mondrian. Aside from paintings, the museum has one of the largest sculpture gardens in Europe with over 160 works by various well-known artists including Jean Dubuffet, Aristide Maillol, Pierre Huyghe, and Marta Pan. Come ready for a bit of fun: visitors can bicycle the gardens.
Kumu Art Museum, Talinn, Estonia
Estonia’s commitment to fantastic museums continues to be one of Europe’s best kept secrets. The Art Museum of Estonia, was founded in 1919, has by now grown into several museums: Kumu Art Museum, Kadriorg Art Museum, Mikkel Museum, Niguliste Museum and Adamson-Eric Museum.
The Kumu Art Museum is the main building of the Art Museum of Estonia. It is both Estonia’s national gallery and a center for contemporary art. The museum houses Estonian art from the 18th century until the present and covers social realism during the 20th-century occupation period, the socialist movements and other political events of the country.
In 2008, the museum, which is one of the largest museums in Estonia and one of the largest art museums in Northern Europe, received the European Museum of the Year Award given by the prestigious European Museum Forum.
Moderna Museet Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Opened in 1958, the beautiful Moderna Museet Stockholm is the state museum for modern and contemporary art. It houses one of Europe’s most important collections of works by Swedish and international modern and contemporary artists. Among the artists whose works are included in the collection are Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Niki de Saint Phalle, Robert Rauschenberg as well as ongoing acquisitions by contemporary artists.
Although the museum itself may feel small compared to some other museums on this list, the Moderna Museet’s collection attests to its importance in Sweden: overall, the collection is made up of about 6,000 paintings, sculptures and installations, around 25,000 watercolors, drawings and graphic magazines, about 400 art videos and films, including about 100,000 photographs.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
From Bilbao now to Madrid: the Museo Reins Sofia is Spain’s national museum of 20th-century Spanish art. Officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, the building has gone through various modifications throughout the years and a large part of its present construction is the work of architects José de Hermosilla and Francisco Sabatini.
The main attraction of the museum are masterpieces by two of Spain’s greatest 20th-century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, highlighted by the Museo’s most famous work, Picasso’s masterpiece to the Spanish Civil War, “Guernica”. Other works by Spanish artists are by Joan Miró, Eduardo Chillida, Julio González, Luis Gordillo, Pablo Gargallo, José Gutiérrez Solana, Juan Gris, Lucio Muñoz, Julio Romero de Torres, Jorge Oteiza, and Antoni Tàpies, and Pablo Serrano,
There are also a few collections of international artists such as pieces by Francis Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Max Ernst, Damien Hirst, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, René Magritte, Henry Moore, Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Mark Rothko, Richard Serra, Clyfford Still, Yves Tanguy, and Wolf Vostell.
Along with its extensive permanent collection, the museum has two other exhibition centers: the Velázquez and Glass palaces in El Retiro Park. These locales host temporary exhibitions of both national and international works, including art installations. The museum’s many galleries, make it one of the world’s largest museums for modern and contemporary art.
Museo Reina Sofía also offers a free-access library of over 100,000 books that specialize in art, including over 3,500 sound recordings, and almost 1,000 videos.
The NMMA at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
The Centre Georges Pompidou, or Pompidou Center, in short, is a multicultural complex of seven levels that houses the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Public Information Library); the Musée National d’Art Moderne, the largest museum for modern art in Europe; and IRCAM, a center for music and acoustic research.
Designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, who were both unknown at the time, the collaborative effort resulted in the construction of one of the most famous and radical buildings of modern history. Their high-tech architectural design was chosen from among many competition entries initiated by then French President Georges Pompidou.
The Musée National d’Art Moderne now contains one of the largest collection of modern and contemporary art with over 100,000 works by 6,400 artists from 90 countries. The works such as painting, sculpture, print, drawing, photography, new media, cinema, architecture, and design cover various art movements from Fauvism in 1905 to the present day. The highlight of the collection are masterpieces by Henri Matisse, Robert Delaunay, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Duchamp, Ernst and Miró. Major figures in modern art have been added to the collection, including René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock, and other key names in the international contemporary scene, like Joseph Beuys, Lucio Fontana, Andy Warhol, and Yves Klein.
Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
The museum was initially built as the pavilion of modern art for the Universal Exposition which opened in 1937. It is France’s largest museum dedicated to contemporary art exhibitions and installations. The building is home to two galleries, one with a collection of twentieth-century art, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the other, Site de Création Contemporaine, dedicated to contemporary art.
The Site de Création Contemporaine, which was launched in 2002, includes exhibits and lectures on conceptual art installations, or three-dimensional works that often are site-specific. The exhibition space, about 22,000 square meters, is one of the largest of its kind in Europe.
Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
Venice’s Museum of Modern Art, Palazzo Grassi, is a grand contemporary art museum overlooking the Grand Canal. The Neoclassical building was initially commissioned by the Grassi family and was designed by Giorgio Massari (1687-1766) and built between 1748 and 1772. In May, 2005, François Pinault, the French billionaire and art collector, took over the Palazzo Grassi. He owns one of the largest collections of contemporary art in the world with over 3,000 works from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Some of the most important minimalist and pop-art works are in the museum’s permanent collection such as those by Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and Damien Hirst.
In April 9, 2017 Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana opened the Damien Hirst’s most ambitious and complex project, “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable,” that was in the works almost ten years. It is the first time a single artist is simultaneously exhibited in two venues.
Sammlung Boros, Berlin, Germany
The converted bunker, which was originally constructed in 1943 by Nazi Germany to shelter Reichsbahn train passengers, was bought by Christian Boros in 2003 to house his private collection of contemporary art.
In 2007, renovation to transform the bunker into a 3,000 square-meter gallery was finished and in 2008, the gallery opened its first exhibition of its permanent collection of contemporary art. Works by international artists from 1990 to the present such as selected sculptures, installations, light and performance works by artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Robert Kusmirowski, Tobias Rehberger, Monika Sosnowska, Santiago Sierra, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and many others were featured. In its four-year run, the show attracted 120,000 visitors.
Since then, the museum has staged two additional exciting shows. In its second show in 2012, “Sammlung Boros #2,” the gallery featured works by 23 artists, including Ai Weiwei, Wolfgang Tillmans, Klara Liden, and Cerith Wyn Evans among others. For its third exhibition, the Boros Collection presented newly acquired works that span from the 1990s to the 2000s.
IMPORTANT: The gallery is open only by appointment and should be booked online either weeks or months ahead.
S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium
The Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (or S.M.A.K.), meaning, City Museum for Contemporary Art, is renowned both for its permanent collection and exciting temporary exhibitions. Opened to the public in 1999, its collection of works focuses on international developments in art from 1945 until the present.
The museum’s collection of more than 3,000 works, is one of the largest collections of contemporary art in Belgium and covers various artistic movements, from Modern to Contemporary art. Movements such as Arte Povera, Cobra, Minimal Art, Pop Art, and Conceptual Art are showcased by famous artists such as Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Karel Appel, Panamarenko, and other internationally known artists.
Serpentine Gallery and Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, England
The Serpentine Galleries made up of two galleries about a five-minute walk from each other, are one of London’s best galleries for modern and contemporary art. Situated on either side of the Serpentine Bridge in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens in central London, the galleries attract up to 1.2 million visitors a year.
The Serpentine Gallery, established in 1970, and the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, which opened in 2013, offer visitors world-renowned exhibitions of contemporary art, design, and architecture by emerging and established artists. The art includes works by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Marina Abramovic, and Man Ray. Renowned for its major exhibitions, the Gallery also features a permanent work by Ian Hamilton Finlay in collaboration with Peter Coates; the work is dedicated to the Gallery’s former patron, Diana Princess of Wales.
The Tate Modern, London, England
Hopefully, you’ve stayed with us, because we’ve saved one of the best contemporary art museums for last! Located in the former Bankside Power Station, the Tate Modern is one of the largest modern and contemporary art museums in the world. It houses the United Kingdom’s national collection of British art from 1900 to the present day, including international modern and contemporary art.
Its main attraction is its changing free display of outstanding modern pieces and its major exhibitions that attract thousands of viewers each day. For example, the Damien Hirst retrospective in 2012 brought in 3,000 visitors a day and reached a record-breaking total of 463,087 visitors. Another popular show was the “Matisse Picasso” in 2002, which received 467,166 visitors.
Designed by Swiss architects Herzog & De Meuron in 1995, the Bankside Power Station
was converted to create a second London gallery for the Tate museums, specifically for modern and international art.
They retained the building’s original features – the turbine hall, the boiler house and central chimney including the adjoining switch house. By 2016, a new ten-story extension was completed that increased the size of Tate Modern by 60 percent, enabling it to showcase more artworks and dedicated spaces for live performance art.
Another blockbuster show is slated for March 2019 — a major exhibition about Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), which will take a look at the artist’s relationship with British art and how he was inspired by its culture and in turn, how Van Gogh inspired British artists, from Walter Sickert to Francis Bacon.
