The most recent addition to the Viehof Collection is a work by Sabine Moritz, expanding the list of female artists by one. 

The work ‘Columbus, 2025’ shows a dense network of gestural, overlapping brushstrokes in bold, sometimes contrasting colours. The composition appears deliberately open and non-hierarchical: there is no central motif, but rather an all-over field in which forms are suggested and then dissolve again. In terms of painting technique, the work combines expressive, almost impulsive gestures with controlled colour transitions. The visible brushstrokes and the juxtaposition of transparent and impasto areas create depth without asserting an illusionistic space. The title refers less to a concrete representation than to the motif of ‘discovery’ – understood as an ambivalent, historically burdensome act. Layers of paint cover each other, lines push forward and break off again. Instead of clearer orientation, a visual terrain emerges that is constantly in motion. Thus, ‘Columbus’ exemplifies Moritz's approach of not formulating historical or conceptual references narratively, but rather translating them into an open, painterly structure.

With the recent acquisition of a work by Louise Lawler, another name has been added to the list of female artists.

Since the 1970s, the American conceptual artist has been critically questioning the mechanisms of the art world in her work. She is best known for her photographs, which show artworks not in museums or galleries, but in private collections, warehouses, at auctions or in hotel rooms. In doing so, she draws attention to the context in which art is presented, owned and consumed. Lawler's works raise questions about authorship, the value of art and the role of institutions. Her precise, often ironic gaze reveals how strongly the meaning and perception of art is shaped by its social and economic context. In her works, Lawler shows that art is always perceived in a context that influences its perception.

With one of its latest acquisitions, the Viehof Collection is adding photography to its list of artists. Since 2006, Düsseldorf-based artist Sebastian Riemer has repeatedly developed series that thematize, illuminate and question the documentary claim of photography. In his Press Paintings series, the artist deals with historical photos from press agencies that were mostly retouched with the help of paint in the analog age. The originals he selects in a lengthy search process are meticulously analyzed and individually edited. The intervention does not take place in the motif itself. Through the high-resolution enlargement, which leads to a shift in perception and detachment from the original context, coincidences are emphasized and new approaches are generated.

Riemer explains: "It is really importand to me to show the materiality and the signs of age of the prints very clearly so I use the photographic prozcess to make this visible by enlargement. But I also want to give back a kind of dignity to the photographed persons ans subject matters that hat been altered in so many ways. Some of them were altered cruelly on the pictorial level. So, I often choose a size that is very close to life-size of the depiction, emphasising the gap between the image content of the vintage prints and the partial new image content of the unintended parts (the retouching ans signs of ageing) Also the sometimes very arrucate miniature retouching looks "clumsier" in enlargement, suggesting the bold brush strokes form the field of fine art rather than the origin as applied craft. Moreover, I like to look at this process of stark entlargement like unearthing peudo frescos from an ancient time of image making. Size really makes the differences here."

Sebastian Riemer in conversation with David Campany, in: Sebastian Riemer, Press Paintings, p. 283

Meuser

The Viehof Collection, to which around 1,500 works are currently affiliated, continues to pursue the continuous expansion. In doing so, the collector family aims not only to acquire artists on a one-off basis, but also to follow up on their oeuvre and to add to earlier works and fill gaps as required.

In addition to the first acquisition of works by artists such as Sarah Morris and Jongsuk Yoon, the Meuser portfolio was also supplemented with a current work at the beginning of 2024. The first acquisitions of Meuser's works took place in the early 2000s. The existing 10 artworks has now been expanded to include the work "Windhose" from 2020.

A new position for the Viehof Collection

More than 20 works by Dieter Nuhr are now in the private possession of the Viehof family. This konvolut, which has been expanded over the past few years and finely selected from various groups of works, will now officially be made available to the collection.

Dieter Nuhr has long been one of Germany's best-known satirists. In contrast, probably only a few people know that after studying art with a focus on painting, he devoted himself to photography. The works are created on his travels through remote and exotic places around the world, which Nuhr captures in an almost archival manner.

"In the course of my exploration of living space while traveling, I make a picture of the world. To look around, to see, to experience, to archive, there is the meaning of traveling as of life. We move through time and space, experience, act and remember," says Dieter Nuhr.

But Nuhr's photographs are more than snapshots of places and objects. Through subjectively chosen cropping and image composition, the artist creates independent images, detached from the material context, that seem closer to abstract painting than to photography. Nuhr refers to this transformation as "digital painting." The photographic work becomes more than a mere image. Poetically charged, Nuhr's images combine what is seen with subjective memories and ideas. Image of reality, real materiality and intangible unreal interact.

The artist explains, "A picture is a reflection surface. The image of the landscape is the occasion for conscious perception and association. What the viewer takes away from the picture and what thoughts he develops is up to him. Art is always just a suggestion."

Deichtorhallen Hamburg presents one of the most significant German private collections of contemporary art at two locations, the Hall for Contemporary Art and the Falckenberg Collection in Hamburg-Harburg. The Viehof Collection, which includes important works from the Speck Collection and the Rheingold Collection, brings together over 950 works in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, installations, and video with an emphasis on German art from the post-war era to today. Both catalog and exhibition focus on outstanding groups of work by individual artists including Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Candida Höfer, Jörg Immendorff, Sigmar Polke, Daniel Richter and Rosemarie Trockel.

This comprehensive exhibition in Hamburg, put together entirely from the works of the collection and curated by Dirk Luckow, reveals for the first time the extraordinary range of this collection in an overview of Minimalism, represented by names such as Carl Andre and Dan Flavin, via the 1980s in Cologne defined by Walter Dahn, Georg Herold, Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, the Düsseldorf School of Photography with Struth, Ruff and Sasse right up to the promising field of figurative art of the 21st century showcasing works by André Butzer, Peter Doig, Thomas Houseago, Jonathan Meese, Neo Rauch, Tal R, Corinne Wasmuth and many others.

The bilingual catalogue (German/ English) is avaliable at Snoeck Verlag for 58,00 Euros. Published by Dirk Luckow with essays by Philipp Kiaser, Dirck Luckow, Susanne Titz, Wolfgang Ulrich et al. as well as short texts on particular collecting areas. 360 pages, 410 illustrations in colour.

Check out the catalogue

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Exhibition:
Deichtorhallen Hamburg/Sammlung Falckenberg Hamburg-Harburg, 1.10.2016 – 15.01.2017