Alte Hasen: Paul Maenz in conversation with Renate Wiehager

7 pm  

Paul Maenz (born 1939 in Gelsenkirchen, grown up in Northern Germany) attended the Folkwang School of Music, Dance and Speech before becoming art director at the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt/Main and New York City. In the year 1970 he founded the Gallery Paul Maenz in Cologne which focused on conceptual art and Arte Povera. During the years 1973/74 he additionally ran a branch of the gallery in Brussels. In the 1980s his gallery pioneered in showing the painting of the Italian Transavanguardia and the German "Junge Wilde". Also artists such as Keith Haring, Jeff Koons and Anselm Kiefer were displayed there. In 1990 Paul Maenz closed his gallery and passed on his gallery archive to the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles. Between 1993 and 2005 his private collection of about 450 paintings, objects, installations as well as drawings was located at the Neues Museum in Weimar. In 2000 Paul Maenz was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his merits in the cultural landscape of Thuringia. Since 1993 he has been living in Berlin where he supports young and emerging artists and galleries with great engagement.

Renate Wiehager (born 1959 in Bremen) studied art history, theology, literature and philosophy in Kiel. Between 1991 and 2000 she was the director of the Villa Merkel in Esslingen. Since 2001 she has been the director of both the Daimler Art Collection (Stuttgart/Berlin) and of Daimler Contemporary Berlin. Renate Wiehager has curated solo shows with artists like Joseph Kosuth, Roman Signer, Martin Kippenberger, Sylvie Fleury and John M. Armleder as well as about 100 themed exhibitions. She published more than 160 books and catalogues and around 200 essays on 20th century art in art journals, anthologies and catalogues.