++++ Manifesta is one of the most renowned contemporary art events in Europe and Frankfurt is proud to have been named host to Manifesta 4. We understand the appointment as a challenge for Frankfurt and its art scene that will leave its mark.

Although Frankfurt is primarily known as an international financial centre, and while the city is not readily associated with the fine arts, it boasts a number of important museums and a very lively contemporary art scene.

Throughout most of Frankfurt’s 1200 years of history, the city remained an independent part of the Holy Roman Empire. No king or prince ever ruled Frankfurt. As a result, there were no princely patrons who could acquire great art collections. Instead, the Frankfurt museums were founded as private foundations or municipal organizations that, without federal or state funding, still managed to make a major impact on the art world. For instance, the Frankfurt Städelschule is an unpretentious academy, where ideas have always counted more than inflated gestures. With the growing importance of Frankfurt as an international hub of finance and business, the Frankfurt gallery and art scene has come into national and international prominence in the last fifteen years.


Frankfurt is a city where people debate, discuss and dispute the arts. Two leading national newspapers based in Frankfurt contribute to the ongoing debate on art. Frankfurt’s Art Association, The Frankfurter Kunstverein, which was founded in 1829 and shortly after the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, which was founded shortly afterwards, are both institutions that have been dedicated to private and public art from the outset.

Public foundations have always played a major role in the cultural life of Frankfurt. Many cultural institutions are based on private initiative, and many of them were brought to life by Frankfurt’s then important and influential Jewish community. Even today, Frankfurt has the highest percentage of private foundations of any city in Germany.
In the eventful period between World War I and World War II, Frankfurt witnessed a great deal of practical and theoretical discourse on modern art. Although the debate was much more political and radical in Frankfurt than elsewhere, widespread testimony to this fruitful discourse can be witnessed today, not least of all in the many buildings of the influential architect, Ernst May, who put ideas associated with the Bauhaus into practice in Frankfurt from around 1925 on. The Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung), founded as early as 1923, provided the theoretical foundations for the discourse on modern art, and famous professors, such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, carried the discussion well into the second half of the century and up to the student movement of 1968.

Frankfurt is a city that has robbed itself of its Jewish identity - and at the same time its cultural identity - during the Nazi era. After the end of World War II, Frankfurt - like many other German cities - was primarily concerned with pragmatic restoration rather than truly redefining itself. The real impetus for change came from the student movements. In the early seventies, the Frankfurt Experimenta was an interdisciplinary cultural festival that was shaped by the involvement of Josef Beuys, among others. The Theater am Turm flourished under Fassbinder, and before that Harry Buckwitz had established West Germany’s most important Brecht theatre.

Since the late eighties, the Frankfurt art scene has undergone radical changes. The new ballet company of William Forsythe, the Ensemble Moderne, and the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm have demonstrated new cultural perspectives focusing on peripheral movements and interdisciplinary ideas. Kasper König expanded the cultural horizon with a reformed Städelschule and the Portikus Gallery, and Jean-Christophe Amman with an entirely new Museum of Modern Art. We have also seen new approaches to art in public places. The former Museum of Applied Arts has recently repositioned itself as a centre for art and design under its new name, MAK Frankfurt.
Numerous other institutions also contribute to the cultural life of Frankfurt: They include the Frankfurt House of Literature, the Institute of New Media, the Design Council, the Fotoforum, and many independent galleries in and around Frankfurt. Leading German banks such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, and DG Bank own impressive art collections that serve as an interface between art and business.

The participants in Manifesta 4 will find Frankfurt an ideal location for networking in the arts and should profit from the material advantages that Frankfurt provides for art. I believe both Manifesta and the city of Frankfurt will strongly benefit from the potential provided by bringing this event to Frankfurt.