Berlin 1994–2003, a documentary record of all the exhibitions held at Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, vividly illustrates Max Hetzler’s international reputation as a gallerist. In over 100 ex-hibitions since he came to Berlin in 1994, he has regularly brought artists to the capital such as Darren Almond, Rineke Dijkstra, Günther Förg, Ellen Gallagher, Georg Herold, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Vera Lutter, Sarah Morris, Albert Oehlen, Yves Oppenheim, Thomas Struth and Christopher Wool, hosting a range of high-profile exhibitions that have contributed to the international debate on art.

Max Hetzler founded his gallery in Stuttgart in 1974; in 1983 he moved to Cologne, Germany’s capital city for art at that time. He later opened his first Berlin gallery in the Schillerstrasse (until 1997). Parallel to this, in 1995 he started up a second gallery in the Zimmerstrasse. He then branched out again in autumn 2001, opening a further gallery beneath the S-Bahn railway arches in the Holzmarktstrasse.

Berlin 1994–2003 retraces these steps. Richly illustrated with installation shots and photographs of exhibits, the book chronologically reproduces all the gallery’s past exhibitions, extracting an inspiring sense of energy from the wealth of vigorous artistic positions they manifest. In a compelling, if not extreme manner, all the artists shown here reveal a shared contempo-raneity, in the sense that in their work each of them challenges the prevailing standards of the unbounded flood of images in our times, reflecting these shifting visual strategies in their works. The unwavering rationale of the gallery’s approach also fostered a large number of programmatic group shows and themed exhibitions curated by artists.

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Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin