Art Museum
Q2415036

Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Q2415036 is an art museum in Neu-Ulm, United States.
About Q2415036
The Walther Collection is a private non-profit organization dedicated to researching, collecting, exhibiting, and publishing modern and contemporary photography and video art. The collection has two exhibition spaces: the Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, in Germany, and the Walther Collection Project Space in New York City.
Q2415036 by the numbers
- Founded
- 2010
Plan your visit
Q2415036
- Website
- www.walthercollection.com
Overview
The Walther Collection is a private non-profit organization dedicated to researching, collecting, exhibiting, and publishing modern and contemporary photography and video art. Supported by the Walther Family Foundation, the organization focuses on incorporating works across regions, periods, and artistic sensibilities, with a particular emphasis on artists and photographers working in Asia and Africa. It maintains two exhibition spaces: its main museum complex in Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany, and the Walther Collection Project Space in New York City.
Founding & history
The collection was established by German-American art collector and former Goldman Sachs investment banker Artur Walther, who retired in 1994 to focus on architecture, art, and design. The foundation of the collection was built upon works by German photographers of the New Objectivity movement from the 1920s, such as August Sander and Karl Blossfeldt, before expanding beyond European and American photography. The main exhibition complex in Burlafingen opened on June 12, 2010, followed by the New York Project Space on April 15, 2011. In March 2025, the final exhibition concluded in Burlafingen, and the organization announced it would donate the majority of its collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its final major European exhibition, Into the Unseen, was held at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg.
Collection scope
The holdings initially centered on modern German photography and later expanded to include contemporary European, American, Asian, and African photography and video art. A major focus of the collection has been African photography and video art, explored through a multi-year investigation into portraiture, landscape, and the historical archive. The collection also examines the formal tools of classification, including archives, typologies, and time-based series, to challenge the conventions of photographic realism. International curators are invited to conceive thematic exhibitions that present the collection and new acquisitions.
Notable holdings
The collection holds typologies by Bernd and Hilla Becher, as well as foundational 20th-century works by August Sander and Karl Blossfeldt. It features extensive African photography and video art, including historical ethnographic images from southern and eastern Africa dating from the 1860s to the 1940s by figures like A. M. Duggan-Cronin, alongside contemporary African artists such as Sammy Baloji, Seydou Keita, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, Malick Sidibe, and Guy Tillim. Other notable artists in the collection include Ai Weiwei, Zhang Huan, Song Dong, Richard Avedon, Stephen Shore, Ed Ruscha, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth.
Building & site
The main venue in Burlafingen is a four-building museum compound with 1000 square meters of exhibition space, designed to blend unobtrusively into the residential neighborhood. The principal building is the White Box, a light-filled, three-story minimalist new construction designed by the Ulm firm Braunger Wortz. It features large square wall openings and contains 500 square meters of underground gallery space partially visible from the ground floor. The Green House is a 1950s two-family home covered in ivy, gutted inside to create a cabinet-like atmosphere for small-format works. The Black House is a prefabricated bungalow with a windowless street facade and a large window front facing the garden, painted completely black to house serial and conceptual photography. A fourth structure, the Gray House, serves as an administrative office, library, and guest residence.
Visiting
The main campus is located in the Burlafingen district of Neu-Ulm, Bavaria, Germany. The secondary venue, the Walther Collection Project Space, is located in the West Chelsea Arts Building in the Chelsea gallery district of New York City and provides 160 square meters of exhibition space. The New York space operated with quarterly exhibitions to complement the longer-term program in Germany. Following the conclusion of exhibitions in Burlafingen in March 2025, the physical campus in Germany ceased its regular exhibition programming, and the bulk of the collection was gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Museums near Q2415036
- Art Museum Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Stuttgart, Germany
- Library Photographic Archive of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte Munich, Germany
- Art Museum Alte Pinakothek Munich, Germany
- Art Museum Lenbachhaus Munich, Germany
- Art Museum Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München Maxvorstadt, Germany
- Art Museum Bavarian State Painting Collections Munich, Germany