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To mark the twentieth anniversary of the PEAC Museum, we are publishing the second volume of our collection catalog. The book traces the history of the exhibitions and the collection from 2015-2024. The early years of the Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle, from 2004 to 2014, are documented in the previous volume „Sammeln, um zu Sehen“. Both books are available here at the museum, or to order via team@peac.digital for 35€ plus shipping costs.

"You just go and sit and watch. It's a simple experience. You become lighter and lighter and don't want to do anything else."

Dear friends of contemporary art, dear friends of the PEAC Museum, dear artists, dear Mayor von Kirchbach

With the above quote from the American minimalist artist Agnes Martin, which my father loved and internalised, I would like to welcome you all to our 20th anniversary exhibition "Between White Walls".

When my father bought his first picture in 1961, a print by Michael Mathias Prechtl, he probably never dreamed that it would be the beginning of a passion for collecting, which today has become an internationally recognised exhibition space for Minimal Art and Radical Painting, the PEAC Museum. Allow me therefore to dedicate this anniversary exhibition and also my small look back as a "homage to Paul Ege".

The philosopher Günter Figal, who sadly passed away recently, once described the PEAC Museum as an "inn of art" and saw Paul Ege as a "host" with a "gesture of showing" and a "friendly invitation to look". And there has been a lot to see in the last 20 years.

"Collect to see"!

This was also Paul Ege's foreword to the last anniversary volume on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the PEAC Museum, then still known as "Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle". The very name of our "meeting place for contemporary art" at that time - Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle - brings out character traits of my father such as: Modesty. Humility. Gratitude.

He never wanted to be in the foreground as a prominent collector. Even though he is virtually the first to greet us in Room 1 today and his eyes seem to follow us on our tour.

In the early days, the 60s and 70s, his passion for collecting was limited to his own four walls, but without taking into account the fact that he also shared these walls with his family. The works of art back then were of a rather sombre nature: Werner Knaupp, with felt black biros on a black background, morbid and unpleasant smelling cushions by Gotthard Graupner and squeezed tubes of paint by Jürgen Brodwolf. It took some getting used to for my brother and me. The only bright and colourful spots back then were Rupprecht Geiger and Victor Vasarely.

At some point, his own four walls became too small. At the beginning of the 1990s, my father had the idea of setting up his first exhibition space for contemporary art in the basement of the company. In his aforementioned modesty, he wanted to remain more or less anonymous as a collector and simply called the whole thing the "Roßkopf Collection". Nevertheless, it was very important to him to share his "view of art" with other interested people.

"To give the things he loved a display window", as Volker Bauermeister recently described it.

During this time, he underwent a radical change in his passion for collecting. Triggered by an eye operation - which obviously went more than well - he must have seen and perceived colours in a completely new way. He was infinitely grateful for this!

Monochrome colour painting had suddenly fascinated him. And my mother too! Galleries such as Luise Krohn in Badenweiler or Hengesbach Gallery in Wuppertal, but also Annemarie Verna in Zurich and the Galerie nächst St. Stephan in Vienna, to name but a few, accompanied my father and mother on their new collecting path. This led to contacts with artists such as Marcia Hafif, Joseph Marioni, Phil Sims and Rudolf de Crignis, all of whom are represented in the current exhibition.

It came - you guessed it - as it had to come: even these exhibition spaces were soon too small and my father had to go on another search for ideas. In his humility, he did not want to leave the location here in the North Industrial Estate and so the present museum was simply added as an upper storey to the factory building as part of a necessary expansion of the business. The outer shell was not so important - modesty! - but the rooms and the interior were.

Insights instead of sights.

Together with Rolf Hengesbach, the rooms and the spatial concept were developed and finally realised. The Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle, today's PEAC Museum, was born and opened almost on the same day in 2004. The new dimensions ultimately required professional management and supervision. While working as treasurer at the Kunstverein Freiburg, he met Julia Galandi-Pascual and was able to recruit her as curator and museum director. A professional museum operation took its course with spectacular exhibitions such as:

Einknicken oder Kante zeigen?
Blind!Date
Allerbeste Aussichten
Blickwechsel
Auf der ganzen Linie!
Ansichtssache

...to name just a few.

While the early years were carried out financially on the back of the company and thus also painfully on the backs of my brother and me, in 2008 we were able to persuade my father and mother to set up a foundation and provide it with appropriate capital: The non-profit Ege Kunst- und Kulturstiftung (Ege Art and Culture Foundation) was established and today supports the museum's operations.

Unfortunately, my father passed away unexpectedly in June 2019. A world collapsed for us - and especially for my mother.

Julia Galandi-Pascual and her team saved the day and continued to run the exhibition. My mother and I supported her as the new board members of the Ege Art and Culture Foundation. One of the first measures was to realise the already prepared brand relaunch as the "Paul Ege Art Collection" and the "PEAC Museum". Further exciting exhibitions followed:

Im Garten der Farben
Nearby
Spurensuche

as well as solo shows with Annette Merkenthaler, Thomas Kitzinger and Peter Tollens.

Another joint measure was to set up an expert advisory board. My father had already planned this during his lifetime.

Dr Stefan Kraus, director of the Kolumba Museum in Cologne
Rolf Hengesbach, gallery owner from Wuppertal and
Dr Rüdiger Nolte, long-time rector of the Freiburg University of Music

have joined us for that.

All three gentlemen are long-time companions of the PEAC and in particular long-time companions of my father. My mother and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their great commitment and close ties.

In September 2022, Julia Galandi-Pascual decided to break new ground after 18 years. The founder, collector, discoverer, and expert sparring partner Paul Ege was no longer there for her. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for these inspiring, fulfilling and creative 18 years, dear Julia Galandi-Pascual.

Despite all the prophecies of doom, this was not the end of PEAC!

With the support of the advisory board, we were able to competently fill the rather large gap. On the one hand, we had Eveline Weber in mind, already a long-standing curator at the PEAC, and were also able to recruit another experienced curator, Lea Altner. Both women identified so strongly with the PEAC and the collection that it was extremely difficult for the museum management to choose one of them. Fortunately, despite their differences, the two harmonised so well that they themselves suggested a dual leadership.

Since February 2023, the PEAC Museum has been successfully managed by Lea Altner and Eveline Weber as co-directors. They have organised fantastic exhibitions such as

Backspace with Sebastian Dannenberg
Allerbeste Aussichten 2
Vom Geschmack eines Apfels

and numerous school art exhibitions and performances.

And of course the anniversary exhibition "Between White Walls", which starts today! For me, this is a unique and perfectly curated exhibition that will stay with us for a long time to come. Thank you and congratulations for this, dear Lea and dear Eveline, who unfortunately cannot be here today because she is on maternity leave and gave birth to her daughter Pauline Eloise a week ago.

But now a look into the future. We want to take PEAC to the "next level" together! And we have developed a vision for this:

Today, the Paul Ege Art Collection is one of the most comprehensive collections in Europe in the field of colour painting, supplemented by works of Minimal Art and Conceptual Art. It is our incentive not only to preserve this collection, but also to make it accessible to all interested parties in ever new contexts, to keep it alive and to develop it further through new acquisitions. The museum's own collection is the nucleus of this exhibition venue and thus a fund for ever new themes and questions. Intensive long-term relationships with the artists in the collection form important guidelines for the curatorial work. However, interdisciplinary approaches and collaborations will also form an integral part of our programme in the future. We want to differentiate ourselves from other institutions, further raise the profile of the collection and the PEAC Museum internationally and increase awareness among the specialist public.

In a nutshell, this means "Our goal and our vision is to create a space for experience in which the network of relationships between the work, the space and the viewer plays a special role, in which the ability to perceive the self and the world is sharpened."

More than 20 years have created the conditions for this, in particular through the collector, benefactor, patron and discoverer Paul Ege.

Our team, the two co-directors Lea Altner and Eveline Weber, the new curatorial assistant Isabella Wild, as well as other constants in our team such as Johannes Kasperczyk, Susanne Bormann, Ulrike Brasch, Lena Reckord, Christine Lohmeyer and Renate Jaros are more than motivated to achieve our vision.

Many thanks to you all!

But also to you, dear friends of the PEAC Museum, dear artists, many thanks for your many years of interest, curiosity, joy in experimentation and loyalty, because without content and an audience we would not be visible!

If you would like to read the last few years summarised by a competent pen, I recommend our great anniversary volume and in particular pages 149 to 160 "On visibility facts" by Lea Altner and Eveline.

Available for 30€. And in a double pack with the first anniversary volume for €35!

But before I hand over to our Mayor for Culture, Youth and Social Affairs, Ulrich von Kirchbach, whom I would like to thank most sincerely for agreeing, as he so often does, to give greetings from the city of Freiburg, I would also like to thank our quartet today from the fantastic Freiburg Baroque Orchestra:

Peter Barci and Eva Borhi, violin
Johannes Kofler violoncello and
David Blunden harpsichord.