I COLLECT ART THAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND

The Bunker in Berlin currently belongs to Christian Boros, who exhibits here on rotation  his monumental art collection of contemporary works by some of the biggest names including Olafur Eliasson, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Thomas Zipp.

The German landmark was built during WWII as an air raid shelter and over the years has been used as a Soviet prison, a fruit warehouse, a techno-fetish nightclub, (host to many illegal parties and illicit encounters), and currently a modern art gallery-private residence.  One can only visit the collection during the weekend and in a privately guided group.

Boros’s interest in  visual media began early, leading him to study design before going on to launch Boros, a successful advertising firm boasting Coca-Cola, Siemens, and  music network VIVA in its portfolio. He was one of the first collectors of Wolfgang Tillmans’s work, purchasing two photographs in 1990 for a reported 300 Deutsch Mark each. His collection and buying power have since grown ever so quickly. Boros’s motto as a collector, emblazoned across the collection’s site, is “I collect art that I don’t understand,” and moving through the maze of passages and rooms in this bunker space, viewers encounter abstract minimal sculptures which  are set against dark concrete walls still bearing bullet holes, paint, scars, and traces of graffiti. A work by Scandinavian duo Elmgreen and Dragset features a creepy sculpture of a man on a hospital bed staring through one of the bunker’s few windows into a hotel room across the courtyard. The art is neither curated nor site specific, although it may seem so. But every artist in the exhibition came to the bunker personally and installed his or her works.