Images: courtesy collection Selim Varol and me collectors room, berlin; last image © Jermain Raffington & Clemens Poloczek via ignant
Thomas Olbricht's private museum Me Collectors Room at Auguststrasse in Berlin-Mitte has not convinced me in a single exhibition. The only space that always seems coherent to me, is his Wunderkammer - a permanent chamber-of-curiosity collection, displaying hundreds of artifacts from the Renaissance and Baroque period. The current exhibition 'Art & Toys', showing a choice of 3.000 pieces from Selim Varol's 15.000 piece private collection, finally puts the museum's agenda in perspective: The collector himself, his obsession and his passion come to the fore.
Olbricht, titling his museum 'ME' (however, as I found out in the comment section below by Selim Varol himself, meaning Moving Energies), makes no secret of the venue's self-centeredness. Nor does the Düsseldorf-based, 39-year old collector Varol deny his own presence in his collection: “My collection, that’s me – my childhood, my friends, my heroes, my role models, what i enjoy, what moves me.” Shepard Fairey, KAWS, JR, Alexander McQueen, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Tony Oursler, Terry Richardson - an endless list of artists, whose works are presented in the collectors (play-)room. One central piece - a Disney/Horror version of Noah's Ark, is inhabited by mutated Teddybear-Spongebobs and smiling Micky Mouses. The walls are plastered with Street Art prints and Shepard Fairey's Obama-posters from 2008. A wild and bombastic mixture of political and everyday objects.
Selim Varol's collection demonstrates a curiosity in the Zeitgeist of a younger generation - a passion for the arty revolution, the affirmative, the permanent hope for a better world, an everlasting wish to never grow old. And - next to Olbricht's Wunderkammer - the collection found a perfect place to be a time record of our today.
Olbricht, titling his museum 'ME' (however, as I found out in the comment section below by Selim Varol himself, meaning Moving Energies), makes no secret of the venue's self-centeredness. Nor does the Düsseldorf-based, 39-year old collector Varol deny his own presence in his collection: “My collection, that’s me – my childhood, my friends, my heroes, my role models, what i enjoy, what moves me.” Shepard Fairey, KAWS, JR, Alexander McQueen, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Tony Oursler, Terry Richardson - an endless list of artists, whose works are presented in the collectors (play-)room. One central piece - a Disney/Horror version of Noah's Ark, is inhabited by mutated Teddybear-Spongebobs and smiling Micky Mouses. The walls are plastered with Street Art prints and Shepard Fairey's Obama-posters from 2008. A wild and bombastic mixture of political and everyday objects.
Selim Varol's collection demonstrates a curiosity in the Zeitgeist of a younger generation - a passion for the arty revolution, the affirmative, the permanent hope for a better world, an everlasting wish to never grow old. And - next to Olbricht's Wunderkammer - the collection found a perfect place to be a time record of our today.
