Name: DAS MINSK KUNSTHAUS IN POTSDAM
Start: 2022-09-24
End: 2030-09-29
Location: DAS MINSK KUNSTHAUS IN POTSDAM

Opening in September 2022, DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam is the latest project of the Hasso Plattner Foundation. In the former restaurant "Minsk", built in the 1970s in the modernist style of the GDR, the foundation is showing works from its collection that were created in the GDR after 1945. Important works by well-known GDR artists such as Wolfgang Mattheuer, Bernhard Heisig and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt form the basis of the exhibition programme. Works of art from this period are brought into dialogue with contemporary art at the MINSK and presented in changing exhibitions.

DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam, September 2022

The house is to become a place for encounters again, as it was in its café days. From now on, between modern and contemporary art and the public. It was the citizens of Potsdam who were able to prevent the demolition. Their old favourite leisure spot and excursion destination had not been forgotten by them.

The well-visited terrace restaurant "Minsk" was built on the Brauhausberg in Potsdam from 1971 to 1977 according to a design by the architects Karl-Heinz Birkholz and Wolfgang Müller. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the closure of the restaurant in the mid-1990s, the building stood empty and was close to demolition until the Hasso Plattner Foundation was able to purchase it in 2019.

During the renovation, reminiscences of the old "Minsk", such as the large spiral staircase and the rounded bar counter, were preserved. The foyer and bar were restaged by the architectural firm Linearama from Genoa in collaboration with the Hedwig Bollhagen workshops in Marwitz, Brandenburg.

"In the new exhibition house, the works in the collection from the period after 1945 find a home. Art from the former GDR is still hardly represented in museums today and does not receive the appreciation it deserves. We want to change that, make the works accessible to the public and show how diverse and significant the art of this period is." - Hasso Plattner