An exhibition in honor of the Hamburg art collector Harald Falckenberg (1943–2023)

The life of every person inevitably leaves a mark. This is particularly true in the case of Harald Falckenberg, the Hamburg entrepreneur and lawyer. He left behind an unparalleled art collection of around 2,400 works with an emphasis on German and American contemporary art from the 1980s onwards. Anarchic, polemical and provocative works from the worlds of Fluxus and Neo-Dada. Conceptual and performance art, narrative, cynical, melancholic and humorous art, true to Falckenberg’s motto of “civil disobedience.”

As an excerpt from this collection, forty-five works by twenty-nine international artists are presented on loan from the Deichtorhallen Hamburg/Falckenberg Collection. This is complemented by a new expansive installation by the artist Christian Jankowski that pays homage to Harald Falckenberg as a collector and person. The work Antikstübchen Nachwort reflects Falckenberg’s physical and intellectual legacy.

The artist commissioned Rümpelwelt, a household clearance company, to transport the remaining objects to be cleared from Harald and Larissa Falckenberg’s apartment in Hamburg to Potsdam. Rümpelwelt then sorted the objects according to their future destination—used bookstore, donations, recycling center, and so on—and arranged them in the exhibition space. Light boxes complement these groups of objects and echo the aesthetic and style of junk stores. Advertising slogans are interwoven with Falckenberg’s text headings.

The accompanying video work documents the objects’ journey, focusing on the narratives and subjective experiences of the junk dealers. In an additional narrative thread, fragments from Falckenberg’s writings on art are recited by the junk dealers, who transcend their professional identity by assuming the role of the art collector. The result is a surreal moment. Falckenberg’s philosophy of collecting, his attitude to art and his humor are all continued in Jankowski’s artistic “afterword.”

An afterword is an aid to understanding, a reflection or a dedication at the end of a literary or rhetorical work. In the case of this exhibition, it comes at the end of a life whose traces will continue to have an impact on the present and the future for a long time to come.

Sonia González