… the art market shut down. The immediate consequences – the closing of all galleries and museums, the cancelling of all exhibitions and art fairs, the staying away of all visitors, etc. – for many artists were catastrophic. While the relevant public bodies began to react to the standstill only gradually, the Klocker Foundation was able to move in quickly and immediately where the market had gone quiet. But the artists were not meant to turn into supplicants. As early as March 2020, therefore, a special budget for acquisitions, amounting to 115,000 euro, was set up, tendered and wound up.
The reaction was prompt and overwhelming. The jury conferred online and around the clock. After three days, the selection list was closed, twenty-eight positions chosen from forty-four submissions and immediately purchased. Within a week the artists had the money in their accounts. – And the collection had grown by a body of works serving as a snapshot of art in the lockdown, when time outside stood still, and everything inside went very quickly.
Rarely has it been possible to honour founder Emmy Klocker’s legacy, who wanted to preserve the name givers memory through acts of charity and the promotion of art, as manifestly as through this campaign.
The exhibition “In March 2020 …” presents all positions acquired. By way of exception the Klocker Museum in this case dedicates all its rooms to the presentation of works from the collection.
