Neue Galerie, Art museum along Schöne Aussicht, Kassel, Germany
The Neue Galerie is an art museum in Kassel housed in a neo-Renaissance picture gallery built 1871–1877 to plans by Heinrich von Dehn-Rotfelser, modelled on Munich's Alte Pinakothek. Its 89.3 m long facade carries gable reliefs and niche figures of Rembrandt and Rubens by Karl Hassenpflug, and a sandstone caryatid portal faces the Karlsaue. Inside, top-lit halls and side-lit cabinets show 19th- and 20th-century painting, sculpture and contemporary art.
Built 1871–1877 to plans by Heinrich von Dehn-Rotfelser as a picture gallery for the Kassel Old Masters, modelled on Klenze's Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Burned out in the Royal Air Force raid of 22/23 October 1943; key paintings had been evacuated, some stored in Vienna and returned in 1956. The Old Masters moved to Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, and the repaired building reopened on 4 September 1976 as the Neue Galerie.
Since 2019 the upper floor has held about: documenta, a permanent display of acquisitions from past editions, archival material, photographs and videos. It traces how the 1955 exhibition grew from a local post-war project into an international platform. The building itself served as a documenta venue from the 1960s and again as one for documenta 12 in 2007.
The museum sits at Schöne Aussicht between the Rathaus and the Karlsaue, overlooking the park; the documenta presentation about: documenta occupies the upper floor. The building was closed from 2006 to November 2011 for renovation, and during that time the empty rooms served as a venue of documenta 12 in 2007.
The Beuys room holds the installation The Pack, a 1969 work of a Volkswagen bus disgorging sledges with fat and felt. Beuys installed the room himself for the 1976 reopening, and it survived the 2006–2011 renovation as a fixed point of the collection.
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