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The Herbert-Gerisch Foundation set itself the goal of the synopsis of historical architecture and landscape design with contemporary art. The ensemble of sculptures by internationally renowned artists grows annually. The collection is supplemented by temporary exhibitions in public space in the Villa Wachholtz and Gerisch Gallery: 400 square meters of exhibition space to exhibit retrospective shows as well as items of sculpture, painting, printmaking and video art. An ambitious social program of lectures, discussions, readings and concerts makes Villa Wachholtz a meeting place for culture lovers.

The collection of sculptures in the park seeks to investigate the questions: what is man’s relationship to nature at the beginning of the 21st Century? How does current art stand in relation to landscape? In what form are social issues reflected in our view of nature?

And how does art take up these ideas about nature?An extensive inventory of sculptural forms in the Gerisch Sculpture Park already forms the foundation for the program of the Gerisch Foundation. Above and beyond this collection, the goal is to create a landscape park extending east from the city center in Neumünster into the natural wetland areas east of the park.

The driver for this cultural commitment, unique for Schleswig-Holstein, is the Gerisch Foundation, founded in 2001 and based in Neumünster, which is also the home of the founding couple Brigitte and Herbert Gerisch. Former Executive and current honorary chairman of the BIG-BAU company, Herbert Gerisch wants to help make Schleswig-Holstein, a former textile and leather centre, into a "city of modern sculpture." Five years ago, Brigitte and Herbert Gerisch started building a sculpture collection designed grow annually. The collection includes works by artists of international standing, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Horst Antes, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Mimmo Paladino, Manolo Valdés, Menashe Kadishman, Markus Lüpertz, and Katsuhito Nishikawa.With the opening of the park under the leadership of Dr. Martin Henatsch, new artistic works by Olaf Nicolai, Bogomir Ecker, Thomas Voice, Brigitte Kowanz and Carsten Höller have been added.

Carsten Höller’s “Problem Play”

The great promise of happiness - play, nature, love, kids, flush - that are the leitmotifs of Carsten Höller's exhibition "problem play" in the Gerisch Foundation.

Even on the large meadow in the Gerisch Sculpture Park there will be a memorable confrontation: an old-fashioned children's carousel, the epitome of frenzied delimitation of space and time, is opposed by a greatly enlarged mushroom, epitome of fabulous exaggeration of nature. But not only carefree play and fabulous intoxication are Höller's themes, but also their abysmal nature - the "problem play"; instead of exhilarating speed, the carousel rotates as if paralyzed in an infinite slowness.Intoxication and sobriety, myth and science, playfulness and problems pervade the work of Carsten Höller to create a story.

The toadstool is rooted like no other in Central European fairy tales: alluringly colored, but toxic; the incarnation of danger and yet the promise of mind-expanding states. Just last year, Höller dedicated an exhibition in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin to the fabled “Soma” potion, probably derived from toadstools. Now a monumental 3.5 meter high Giant Triple Mushroom stands as the most recent addition to the collection inventory of the Gerisch Foundation in the “enchanted forest” -- as the reform gardner Harry Maasz so named it in 1924. In addition, many both early and recent works by the artist will be on display in the Villa Wachholtz and in the Gerisch Gallery.

www.gerisch-stiftung.de

Herbert-Gerisch-Stiftung
Brachenfelder Str. 69 (Postadresse: Hauptstraße 1)
24536 Neumünster