The Falckenberg Collection comprises more than 2,200 works by 450 artists. Its focus is on the art of the counterculture, which emerged after the Second World War as a revolt against the elites and the art establishment, particularly in the United States and Germany.
The collection has received multiple international accolades and was named by the influential New York magazine ARTnews as one of the world’s top 200 collections. It places special emphasis on independent thinkers and outsiders in the art world who, through subversive and often ironic, sarcastic, or even cynical perspectives, undermine traditional notions of art as a representation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
An early focus of the collection lies on works from the late 1970s and 1980s by artists such as Werner Büttner, Martin Kippenberger, Jürgen Klauke, Astrid Klein, Albert Oehlen, and Franz West, which are juxtaposed with works by American artists of the same generation, including Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Paul McCarthy, and Richard Prince. Taking a step back in time, these holdings were complemented by works from the preceding generation of progressive international artists such as Hanne Darboven, Öyvind Fahlström, Dieter Roth, and Paul Thek. It was not until a third phase of collecting that a connection was made to younger contemporary art practices.
With works by Monica Bonvicini, Andrea Fraser, Christian Jankowski, Sarah Lucas, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades, Daniel Richter, Christoph Schlingensief, Santiago Sierra, and Andreas Slominski, the collection offers a profound overview of both German and international artists of 1980s and 1990s counterculture.
A significant portion of the 64,500 sq ft (6,000 m2) exhibition space is devoted to large-scale multimedia art installations by artists such as John Bock, Thomas Hirschhorn, Mike Kelley, Jon Kessler, Jonathan Meese, Anna Oppermann, and Gregor Schneider. In the basement, visitors have access to a sliding storage system containing around 400 works.
Another focus of the collection lies on photography, featuring works by international artists such as Lewis Baltz, Victor Burgin, Sophie Calle, Larry Clark, William Eggleston, Valie Export, Lee Friedlander, Martha Rosler, Martin Parr, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
Two to three special exhibitions are held each year, featuring works by artists who are either not represented or represented only by a few works in the Falckenberg Collection. The aim of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, as the institution responsible for the Falckenberg Collection, is to keep presenting the collection in new ways and changing contexts.
Harald Falckenberg (1943–2023) was a lawyer, entrepreneur, owner of Philo Fine Arts, a respected publishing house for art theory, and author of numerous publications on art. He first exhibited his art collection, begun in 1994, in a building located directly at the airport. In 2001, the collection moved to the Phoenix-Hallen in the Harburg district of Hamburg. Harald Falckenberg purchased the building in 2007 and, in 2011, made it available to the Deichtorhallen together with his collection as a permanent loan.
