Hamburger Bahnhof Receives Huge Flick Donation

BERLIN—The Hamburger Bahnhof museum of contemporary art in Berlin has received from a gift of 166 works by 44 contemporary artists from collector and regular lender Friedrich Christian Flick. The collaboration between Flick and the museum began in 2004 with a large-scale survey of Flick's collection and has continued with smaller, thematic showings.

Included in the donation are works by top artists of the last 40 years, the period covered by the museum, including: Vito Acconci, John Cage, Nam June Paik, Dieter Roth, Gordon Matta-Clark, Fischli and Weiss, Isa Genzken, Rodney Graham, Martin Kippenberger, Pipilotti Rist, Christoph Buchel, and Wolfgang Tillmans. Flick has put no special restrictions or conditions on the donation.

Says Flick, "I say goodbye to many of my favorite pieces and I do it with joy but also with a bit of melancholy. More than anything, though, I do it with complete confidence in Berlin, in the full knowledge that I am doing the right thing for the artists and the right thing for the museum."