Schenkung Glicksman

The collection of the Kunsthaus has been enriched by the generous donation of Mary Ann and Hal Glicksman. The American collector couple were heavily involved in the Los Angeles art scene from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Hal Glicksman, who was friends with artists of the Beat Generation, began his institutional career at the Passadena Art Museum. In 1963, he played a key role in the major exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s work, the first retrospective and the only one to take place during the artist’s lifetime. He later organised the first exhibition of Californian assemblagists there. From the end of the 1960s, he took over the management of several art centres in Los Angeles, first at Pomona College, then in Irvine and finally at the Otis Institute. He realised important exhibitions by artists such as Michael Asher, Judy Chicago, Daniel Buren, Rosemarie Castoro and Dan Flavin. Mary Ann Glicksman, née Dugane, is herself an artist and actress. She was close to the sculptor Larry Bell and played the leading actress in Guy de Cointet's theatre plays. In their own way, Mary Ann and Hal Glicksman were both able to experience and help shape the development of this important art scene, which was to establish Los Angeles as one of the art capitals of the world.

The collection, consisting of several hundred exhibits, is divided into four main groups: Californian assemblagism, minimal and conceptual art, the Light and Space movement and Pop Art. Certain figures occupy a privileged place in these ensembles, including Michael Asher, Philipp Hefferton, Tom Eatherton, Georges Herms, Wallace Bermann and, of course, Larry Bell and Guy de Cointet. This heterogeneous collection conveys an impression of the permeability between artistic practices, which follows a multidisciplinary concept based on the experiences of the Beat Generation.

The Glicksman couple had already made their first donation to the Museum of Contemporary and Modern Art MAMCO in Geneva in 2022. In 2023, the couple intended to make a more substantial donation, this time split between the MAMCO and the Kunsthaus. This generous donation will enable the Geneva museum to consolidate its collection dedicated to the Californian scene, while providing the Biel/Bienne Kunsthaus with exceptional material for the development of a series of artistic narratives.