Dresden Archive of the Avant-Garde is "Museum of the Year"

German art critics have named the Archive of the Avant-Garde - Egidio Marzona (ADA) Dresden "Museum of the Year 2024". At its annual conference in Leipzig, the AICA association recognized the "courageous decision of the Free State of Saxony to create and fund an entirely new institution".

In a time of difficult budgetary situations and cutbacks in cultural funding, "art-loving Saxony is showing what politicians can be proud of: preserving the wealth of public collections for the future, fuelling the joy of discovery and constantly reinventing the museum in dialogue with the public", said AICA.

The ADA opened in May 2024 as part of the Dresden State Art Collections (SKD). It houses the collection built up by entrepreneur Egidio Marzona since the 1960s with around one million objects, which the patron donated to Saxony in 2016.

The Free State completely converted a baroque building into a modern domicile in a prominent location on the banks of the Elbe. According to the AICA, "an institution of its own kind" was created, which continuously makes its methods transparent and questions them.

"The ADA's research could completely change the museum itself in ten years' time or give rise to a different concept of the avant-garde or modernism," said AICA Vice President Carsten Probst. The ADA also demonstrates "that complexity, curiosity and accessibility are not contradictory, but can be mutually dependent". The ADA is open to visitors on weekdays in the afternoons and into the evenings and is only open longer at weekends.

Prominent collection also for research

Marzona's collection is one of the most important collections of works, objects and documents from the artistic avant-garde of the 20th century. It includes correspondence, manifestos, films, posters, catalogs, artists' books as well as artworks and design objects - by Pablo Picasso, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, Niki de Saint Phalle, Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys.