“We have to be more flexible”
The Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art has taken space in a high-rise office block.
Susanne Gaensheimer is always good for surprises.
Her unconventional view of art has already taken the director of Frankfurt’s Museum of Modern Art (MMK) to the Venice Biennale twice – as curator of the German Pavilion. She also brings her distinctive intuition and great pertinacity to bear on her exhibition programme for the Frankfurt museum. Gaensheimer’s latest coup is to be found where one would least expect it: in the city’s banking district. In autumn 2014, the MMK opened a second site on the second floor of the Taunusturm office block, which gave it an additional 2,000 square metres of exhibition space for its large collection.
The director is treading new ground here, given that MMK2 is the first public museum in Germany to be housed in an office block. As the developers of the high-rise tower also wanted the building to be used for cultural purposes, they offered the museum the chance to use the space without rent or service charges. “Here in Germany we are experiencing a period of upheaval in which the auspices of cultural funding are changing radically,” Gaensheimer explains.
A new museum building for tens of millions of euros is simply inconceivable. “We have to become more flexible and think about new forms of museum work,” the director says.
