What's on at Europe's Museums

An Introduction to the Flick Collection

Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

After months of bitter debate, the controversial Friedrich Christian Flick Collection's premiere exhibition is finally opening in the German capital. The show features a selection of the complete collection, comprising some 400 paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations. The introductory show focuses on a series of work by contemporary artist Bruce Nauman and also reflects on different chapters of contemporary art and the issues it confronts with works from a wide range of artists. It features works by Jason Rhoades, Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Paul McCarthy, Franz West, Pippilotti Rist and Diana Thater, illustrating important issues within contemporary art, while works by Jeff Wall, Dan Graham, Gordon Matta-Clark and Rachel Khedoori provide different perspectives on 'space and architecture'.

The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof runs Sept. 23 through Jan. 2, 2005 and is open daily except Monday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Frankfurt Gets the Yves Klein Blues

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

Considered a visionary by his contemporaries, Yves Klein was an enfant terrible of his time, whose death in 1962 at the age of 34 only added to his legendary status. His body of work, which included early experiments with happenings and performance, land and body art (which he dubbed "anthropometries"), as well as conceptual art, had a lasting influence on future generations. The Schirn art gallery is now hosting an retrospective of 100 works documenting the various stages of his artistic development, such as his first monochromes in orange, yellow, green, pink, black and white, followed by his famous blue monochromes.

Yves Klein runs Sept. 17 to Jan. 9, 2005 and is open Tue, Fri, Sat & Sun from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Cézanne and Friends

Museum Folkwang, Essen

Paul Cézanne is often considered a founder of modern painting. The exhibition features over 100 masterpieces from museums such as the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris. The show illustrates to what extent Cézanne influenced subsequent generations, with work by Picasso, Georges Braque and Fernand Léger showing him to be the father of cubism, and work by Matisse and André Derain proving he was a precursor of fauvism.

Cézanne and the Dawn of Modern Art runs Sept. 18 to Jan. 16, 2005 and is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. to midnight

Poliakoff in Paris

Musée Maillol, Paris

The Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol is currently hosting an extraordinary exhibition of gouaches by Serge Poliakoff, the first retrospective dedicated to the painter’s works on paper. Every summer the artist went on holiday with his family, taking with him only a folding gaming table, colors and paper: this was, as his son Alexis Poliakoff put it, the "gouache season." This exhibition shows the work of one of the most significant figures in the history of abstract painting, including 170 of his earliest works. Poliakoff was a Russian-French painter born in Moscow, whose first one-man show was in 1945 in Paris. He grew to gain a leading position among the abstract painters of the Ecole de Paris in the 1950s. Essentially a colorist, his works have little visible sign of conventional picture space or geometric linear design. Very much objects in themselves, his paintings were a product of and artistic approach which involved manufacturing his own colours and concentrating on technique and paint application.

Serge Poliakoff: The Gouache Season runs through Nov. 7 and is open daily except Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

First Berlin Art Salon

Glashaus, Arena, Berlin

As Berlin hosts the Artforum, 34 Berlin galleries, art spaces, projects, curators and networks have come together for the 1st ever "Kunstsalon", an event which shows why the German capital is considered a mecca for contemporary art. Non-commercial, the event is billed first and foremost as a "salon," featuring readings, films, talks and discussion evenings.

The Berlin Kunstsalon exhibition runs through Sept. 26 and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.