ReadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2025

Kathleen Rahn Author

MARTa Herford Museum for Art, Architecture, Design: The still relatively young Marta Collection contains almost 500 works of contemporary art, many of them large-format works. In keeping with the museum program, it includes outstanding works that engage with questions of design and architecture. The core of this is made up of a wide range of large-format, room-oriented work. Inspired by his encounters with the collector Lutz Teutloff and the founding director of MARTa Herford, Jan Hoet, Heiner Wemhöner acquired the first works of art at the end of the 1990s. The steadily growing collection now comprises around 1,600 works. While the initial focus was primarily on painting, sculpture and photography, the collector's interest increasingly opened up to video art. For a decade and a half now, Chinese contemporary art has been an important focus within the collection. After studying the history of art, history and literary studies in Freiburg im Breisgau and Cologne, Doris Krystof worked as an academic associate at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and as curator at the Kunsthalle Wien. Since 2001 she has been curator for the collection and changing exhibitions at the K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. She has authored numerous publications on modern and contemporary art. Kathleen Rahn is director of the Marta Herford Museum. The art historian comes from Wesel and was artistic director of the Kunstverein Hannover.