The origins of the collection of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst date from the late 1950s. Initiated by the migros founder Gottlieb Duttweiler, the Museum in the late 1970s began focusing on collecting international contemporary art. This publication offers a wide overview focusing on the core pieces of the collection, which consists of around 400 artworks by international and Swiss contemporary artists such as Art & Language, Maurizio Cattelan, Christopher Wool, Katharina Sieverding, Rachel Harrison, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Christoph Büchel, Paul Thek and Douglas Gordon.

The large-scale illustrations are accompanied with texts by writers such as Tom Holert, Charles Esche, Irit Rogoff and Jan Verwoert, reflecting different museums and collection strategies, and referring in particular to the history of the museum which was founded in 1996. Further texts by Nicolas Bourriaud, Philip Ursprung and Heike Munder outline the main thematic focuses of the collection as political art, participation strategies of the 1990s, glamour and pop, and the psychological meaning of space and architecture in contemporary art.

Published with the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich.

English and German text.