Commitment

With Museum Würth 2 and an exclusive conference area for up to 700 people, David Chipperfield Architects completed the Carmen Würth Forum Cultural and Convention Center in Künzelsau in 2020. The vision set out by entrepreneur Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold Würth back in 2005 to “incorporate the inspiring experience of good architecture, art, and culture into the day-to-day (working) lives of employees, business partners, and interested members of the public” became a reality.

The elegant building complex blends harmoniously into the Hohenlohe landscape. Following the opening of the chamber music hall in the summer of 2017, the Great Hall, designed for events with up to 2,500 guests, the spacious open-air grounds, and a rambling sculpture garden, key works of modern and contemporary art from the Würth Collection have now moved into a home worthy of their significance. Würth invested around EUR 39 million in the expansion project.

The collection “The Long View. Reinhold Würth and His Art Collection” in the new Museum Würth 2 traces the extensive collecting activities of Reinhold Würth through a whole range of movements, styles, and trends of the art world of the late 19th century until today. Works by Liebermann, Kirchner, Beckmann, Picasso, Munch, Baselitz, Hockney, Richter, Kapoor, and Longo form three thematic areas: aspects of abstraction, nature and landscape, and finally, metamorphoses of the figure.

Around Carmen Würth Forum, the newly designed sculpture garden provides further highlights and sets the stage for an ensemble of international sculptures against a backdrop that changes depending on the light, the weather conditions, and the season. The 55 mostly monumental works include sculptures by Eduardo Chillida, Anthony Caro, Tony Cragg, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Magdalena Jetelová. Visitors can use the “Museum Würth 2” app as their own personal guide.

With his bare hands and kilos of oil paint, the Berlin outdoor painter Christopher Lehmpfuhl transforms cityscapes and landscapes into large-scale pastose paintings flooded with light. His favorite topic: the wave of divisions and changes running though his hometown. He devotes powerful sequences to Berlin’s much debated “New Center” (Neue Mitte), for example, where the ruins of the old City Palace had to make way for the Palace of the Republic, the building that hosted the former East German parliament, before it in turn was forced to make way for the Humboldt Forum museum in the reconstructed palace. In the studio, on the other hand, he created a series of small-scale pieces in which he comes to terms with saying goodbye to his parents, who passed away in 2018. The motifs of his works of mourning, which break with his conventional technique in their use of paintbrushes, were taken from his father’s photo album. Coinciding with the exhibition “Christopher Lehmpfuhl—Between Pathos and Pastose” (21 October 2019 to 10 January 2021), Museum Würth dedicated the exhibition “Sculpture as an Interruption of Space” to the Irish sculptor Eva Rothschild. Rothschild is the 13th winner of the Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation.

Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall devoted its attention to the diverse contemporary artworks in the Würth Collection and exhibited 170 new works acquired after 1960 with “Up for more” in 2020. The exhibition includes works by minimalists such as Daniel Buren and Günther Förg as well as key protagonists in the German figurative movement, from Markus Lüpertz and Jörg Immendorff to Anselm Kiefer and A. R. Penck. For the first time in the Würth Collection, contemporary US artists ranging from Frank Stella to John Baldessari and David Salle to David Lynch also showcased their skills as masters of large-format works. As part of the supporting program, literary critic Denis Scheck and an actor from Vienna’s Burgtheater Wien, Cornelius Obonya, were among those who enraptured the audience.

The ten associated European galleries of the Würth Group opened several exhibitions at the same time, despite having to take breaks due to the COVID-19 crisis, including a large-scale retrospective exhibition on Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Erstein, Alsace, or the multifaceted themed exhibition “Water, Clouds, Wind” at Würth Netherlands in ’s-Hertogenbosch.

In 2020, numerous works were on loan to international museums, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Albertina in Vienna, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Gemäldegalerie of the Berlin State Museums showcased the 25-piece monumental ensemble The Last Judgement Sculpture by Anthony Caro until 1 November 2020.

In Salzburg, sculptures from the Würth Collection presented in the gardens of Schloss Arenberg and on the inner-city Walk of Modern Art provide for open-air art experiences. Eleven contemporary sculptures are also installed in situ in Künzelsau.

The halls at Carmen Würth Forum were once again filled with world-class concert experiences. Inspired visitors enjoyed the concerts of Würth Philharmoniker and its illustrious guests, including Sonya Yoncheva, Paavo Järvi, and the Camerata Salzburg chamber orchestra. Würth Philharmoniker, which is still a young orchestra, once again bewitched its audience with gripping performances and a varied concert calendar, its music oscillating effortlessly between the most delicate of sounds and dramatic surges of force. Since January 2020, Milan-born Claudio Vandelli, in his role as the orchestra’s in-house principal conductor, has continued to refine Würth Philharmoniker’s performance quality and creative passion. Würth Philharmoniker was established in 2017 at the initiative of Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold Würth.

Virtuoso violin playing on an instrument of particular historical value is also made possible by the foundation Reinhold Würth Musikstiftung gGmbH, which handed over the “Stradivari Ex Ries 1693,” crafted by the Italian master violin maker Antonio Stradivari, to the highly talented violinist Veronika Eberle in October.

WÜRTH FOUNDATION

A breath of fresh air for classical music: The Würth Prize of Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland, endowed with EUR 15,000 in prize money, was awarded to junge norddeutsche philharmonie (the North German Youth Philharmonic Orchestra), on 7 September 2020. The jury praised the orchestra’s “unconventional impetus for today’s music of the future,” saying the orchestra inspired a new generation of musicians with its self-initiative, vigor, and new performance formats.

The ensemble was founded in 2010 by young musicians seeking to explore modern concert forms. In 2019, for example, the orchestra organized the Detect Classic Festival led by conductor Christoph Altstaedt, which aims to open new avenues into classical music for a young audience with a fusion of live classical and electronic music. Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland and the Würth Foundation have been awarding the Würth Prize of Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland since 1991.

WÜRTH FOUNDATION

Israeli writer David Grossman was awarded the 12th Würth Prize for European Literature on 23 September 2020. The Würth Foundation honored the author during a Skype award ceremony, as Mr. Grossman was unable to travel from Israel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The jury, consisting of Chairman Harald Unkelbach, Anna Maria Carpi, Harald Hartung, Sigrid Löffler, Péter Nádas, Christoph Ransmayr, Denis Scheck, and Jürgen Wertheimer, praised “his moral integrity, his incorruptibility, and his courage.” The German public knows David Grossman not only as an author of novels and children’s books but also as a politically involved citizen. “Ever since the voice of his friend Amos Oz went silent, his has been considered the most important one of his country and civil society,” emphasized Ulrich Raulff, President of ifa, in his laudatory speech. The Würth Prize for European Literature, endowed with EUR 25,000, is awarded every two years.

Kulturhaus Würth cultural center with the Bibliothek Frau Holle library was opened in 2017 at the initiative of Carmen Würth. At the heart of the center with its charming interior is the freely accessible personal library of the center’s initiator.

A wide variety of events honoring the spoken, sung, and written word, most of which are initiated by Carmen Würth, enrich the cultural life of the town of Künzelsau and introduce literature to a broad audience: Elementary school children have the opportunity to experience their first reading, while young people and adults can meet prominent authors, learn about exciting biographies and life stories, or get together for casual sing-alongs in the Singbar (song bar). Thanks to the excellent hygiene concept in place, numerous events such as the cabaret Liebling der Schwerkraft (Gravity’s favorite) with Katinka Buddenkotte attracted literature buffs despite the pandemic.

+++ As part of the “Treffpunkt Forum” (Meetings at the Forum) series of talks held at Carmen Würth Forum in 2020, bestselling crime novelist Sebastian Fitzek, actor Axel Milberg, and presenter and satirist Pierre M. Krause discussed current affairs in a session hosted by Bernadette Schoog. +++ In 2020, the Old Masters in the Würth Collection featuring the Darmstadt Madonna by Hans Holbein the Younger once again attained nationwide appeal. Johanniterkirche in Schwäbisch Hall has attracted around 590,000 visitors since the 12th century building was fully renovated and reopened as a museum in 2008. +++ The exhibition “(na, fritze?) lakritze” in the Hirschwirtscheuer museum in Künzelsau took visitors on a journey into Dieter Roth's universe in the Würth Collection until 26 April 2020. Starting 8 May 2020, vibrant, shimmering images in bright colors captured the hearts of visitors to the exhibition “Ute Schmidt—In Bewegung.” +++