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ME COLLECTORS ROOM BERLIN

PLACEText: Kiyohide Hayashi

Personal museum emitting a strong personality with peculiar collections.

There are countless contemporary art museums, galleries and private collections in Berlin. However the visitors are usually fascinated by the artwork, not by the space itself. Even though some people might dislike, me Collectors Room Berlin attracts the visitors with rather too strong a personality.

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Thomas Olbricht © Schacht 2

Me Collectors Room Berlin was opened in May, 2010 to show the art collections of a collector, Thomas Olbricht, who is a medical science professor in Essen. The museum is located at the center of Berlin art scene, Mitte. The next door is the most advanced contemporary museum “KW” and the most important gallery “Neugerriemschneider” is located at the back. The two-storied building has extensive exhibition spaces with an atrium, a unique and playful cafe, and a museum shop with distinctive products related to the collections. The contents are more than we expect for a private museum.

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Wunderkammer © me Collectors Room Berlin Photo: Bernd Borchardt

The collections are divided into two outlines and exhibited. One of them is called “Wunderkammer (Chamber of Curiosities)”. Wunderkammer places an emphasis on Vanitas (meaning vanity of life and death) by displaying full of artworks and objects from the 16th century which arouses “death” and “eroticism”. The most amazing work is the collections of anatomical models and skeleton models from all ages and countries. Each model is reproduced in fine detail, even with a length of about 10 centimeters. It is breathtaking to see the transcendent craftsmanship. The collection includes some creepy and shocking objects such as a specimen of a midget’s head and a craft object using a human skull from the South Sea Islands. These collections are suitable for the name of the chamber of curiosities.

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Alles Kannibalen? © me Collectors Room Berlin Photo: Jana Ebert

In contrast to “Wunderkammer” which is the wide collection of work from the medieval to modern period, there are special exhibitions displaying contemporary art with the collection at the project based exhibition space. The first exhibition from the opening, “Passion Fruits Picked Up From The Olbricht Collection“, showed the work chosen from the collection by the curators. Many artworks are from young asian artists who we barely not have a chance to see in Berlin, including Satoko Nachi and Tomoko Nagai. Other exhibitions are “Ouyang Chun – Painting the King”, the world debut show of young Chinese artist, Ouyang Chun, and “All Cannibal?” showing the cannibalism in contemporary art including the mythology to the social problems. Me Collectors Room Berlin makes a clear distinction and presents its strong character with these unique exhibitions which we can not see at any other museums or galleries.

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Cafe © me Collectors Room Berlin Photo: Christian Jungeblodt

To begin with, there are countless places in Berlin to show the main stream of contemporary art. But there are hardly any places showing unknown foreign artists and work which does not fit in ordinary art contexts. I believe that Me Collectors Room Berlin is the only facility which exhibits the old and contemporary work equally without limiting a boundary of contemporary art and connecting it with fine art crafts from the medieval and modern period. This is why I would like everybody to visit this museum to experience the new way of viewing and feeling art whenever you have a chance to visit Berlin.

me Collectors Room Berlin
Address: Auguststraße 68, 10117 Berlin
Opening Hours: 12:00-18:00 (Cafe 11:30-18:30)
Closed on Monday
Admission: 6 euro
Tel: +49 (0)30 86 00 85-10
http://www.me-berlin.com

Text: Kiyohide Hayashi
Translation: Fumi Nakamura

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