Signalling a generation shift in the German family’s art business towards Modern and contemporary art, the artist agency Bernheimer Contemporary is launching a 600 sq. m exhibition space opposite Museum Island in Berlin. It will stage group exhibitions, public art projects and programmes, and artists’ talks in the 11-room venue.
The space opens with Who Cares? Social Responsibility in Contemporary Art (10 July until September), an exhibition of work by artists such as the Munich-based Tim Wolff, the young designer Dirk Biotto, the Stockholm-based painter Milana Schoeller and the conceptual artist Jan Kuck.
The agency was launched last year by Isabel Bernheimer together with her father, Konrad, who also owns the Old Master dealership Colnaghi in London. He has now stepped back, she says, “to give me the possibility to start my own business in Berlin”. He will also turn over the Bernheimer gallery in Munich to his daughters, who will focus on Modern and contemporary art and photography, according to Antiques Trade Gazette, while he continues to run the UK gallery.
Meanwhile, Sotheby’s London will hold a two-day sale of around 700 lots from the Bernheimer family collection in November, including furniture, paintings, books and manuscripts. “Since 1977, I have led our family business with great dedication and I am now very happy to be handing over to the next Bernheimer generation, who together will take our name forward in new and exciting directions,” Konrad Bernheimer said in a statement. He has also entrusted Sotheby’s with the sale of the medieval castle, Burg Marquartstein, in Germany.