Alexander
Tutsek-
Stiftung

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The work Calm of Water V by Japanese artist Masayo Odahashi (born 1975) from 2004 shows a seated woman who gently cups her hands together with her eyes closed. With this work, Odahashi has created a masterful dialogue between sensory perception and the materiality of glass. Calm of Water V is currently on display in the anniversary exhibition Future Horizons. With great intimacy and an almost tender aura, this work best symbolizes the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung’s enduring passion for glass as a material in contemporary art.

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The heaviest artwork in the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collection weighs almost half a ton, or 404 kilograms, and is titled Alar, which means “wings.” It consists of a multitude of gray-shaded glass blocks arranged in an upward-reaching helix. This heavyweight piece was created by Iranian artist Shirazeh Houshiary and made it onto the cover of the anniversary publication About Glass. The work is currently on display in the Future Horizons exhibition.

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The largest collection of works in the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collection undoubtedly comes from the Swedish artist Ann Wolff and comprises a total of 386 works. The artist was born in Lübeck in 1937 and emigrated to Sweden in the 1960s. Ann Wolff’s extensive oeuvre includes sculptures made of glass, concrete, wood, aluminum, and stone, as well as drawings and photographs. A recurring theme in her work is the self. The collection mainly comprises sculptures made of glass as well as drawings. The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung has also dedicated two exhibitions and two catalogs to the artist.

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Since 2004, the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung has presented a total of 21 exhibitions addressing current social issues and topics in a seismographic manner. Until 2023, the exhibitions were on display in the historic Art Nouveau villa in Munich’s Schwabing district. Since 2021, they have been presented in the new building at Georg-Muche-Straße 4, which houses the two exhibition spaces BlackBox and BlackBox FirstFloor as well as the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung’s office.

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In the field of science, the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung has supported a total of 15 universities and colleges, including renowned institutions such as the Technical University of Munich, ETH Zurich, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

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Since the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung was established, a total of 323 artists have received funding. The artists receiving funding primarily work with installations and objects made of glass or with the medium of photography. The support programs range from assistance for graduates of glass schools (support program: Artist and Child) to established glass artists (project support for Colin Reid with Robotics & Glass) to the international Alexander Tutsek Photography Grant for outstanding talent in contemporary photography.

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As of March 2025, the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung has awarded a total of 470 scholarships to young scientists. Of these, 305 were awarded as part of the Deutschlandstipendien, and a large proportion went to students at the Technical University of Munich.

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The oldest work in the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collection was created in 1960. It thus dates back to the early days of the studio glass movement. Erwin Eisch formed an upside-down vase from clear glass with blue elements. At the time, Eisch had just begun experimenting with glass as a material. His experiments even caught the attention of Harvey Littleton in the USA, the co-founder of the studio glass movement in America.

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One of the first works purchased for the foundation is by the Australian artist Jessica Loughlin (*1975). Between Spaces 5 was created in 1999, purchased shortly afterwards, and thus traveled the long way from Australia to Munich. Loughlin alludes to the open landscapes and salt lakes of southern Australia, which are repeatedly flooded by heavy rainfall.

Loughlin is a master at playing with the translucent and opaque properties of glass and light. Her works respond in a unique way to the incident ambient light.

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The “ECO-CMC” project aims to replace ordinary petroleum in the manufacture of super-stable high-tech ceramic materials with recycled carbon fibers and intelligently processed silicium. If this works, future electric cars could be equipped with brakes that are not only lighter and more powerful, but also make a major contribution to resource conservation. Old carbon parts could thus become the brakes of the future. The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung has been supporting this research project since 2023.

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The work by Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa entitled Fragile Garden (2019) consists of 24 oversized cutlery items made of Murano glass and metal glass pipes, presented on a curved glass table over 6 meters long. The ends of the cutlery feature organic and crystalline shapes that can also evoke culinary associations, such as vegetables, seafood and the terroir of wines.

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Animals are a recurring motif among the 1,134 works in the collection. One of these works is Gedanke und Erinnerung (Thought and Memory) by Hermann Ritterswürden from 2000. We see two ravens dynamically intertwined – one with outstretched wings, the other with its beak open – beneath the two birds, three comparatively small Viking ships rock in a hinted sea. In Norse mythology, the two ravens Hugin and Munin (thought and memory) are the companions of Odin, who is also called the “Raven God.” The work consists of lamp-blown glass and metal threads.

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The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung is funding the equipment for a Powder Processing Lab for a new bachelor’s and master’s degree program in “Materials Science” at ETH Zurich. In this lab, students can gain valuable hands-on experience with state-of-the-art analytical instruments and learn how to manufacture ceramic workpieces such as dental bridges or ceramic heads for hip joints in experimental, practical workshops.

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Since the foundation began its work in 2000, a total of 13 catalogues have been published in collaboration with renowned publishers, as well as independently – including a telephone directory. The publication About Us was awarded the German Photo Book Prize in silver.

The current publication About Glass was also published by HIRMER to mark the 25th anniversary of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung

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In 2008 the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collected numerous works by Chinese artists for the exhibition Glass.China. These included works by Guan Donghai, Wang Sunny, Sun Yi, Wang Qin, and Lee Ringo. The first work was by Sun Yi and was created in 2005. Glass has been used as a medium in contemporary art in China since 2000. This is a very short time compared to the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan, where studio glass has been increasingly popular since the 1960s. Some of these works can be found in the current exhibition Future Horizons.

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A first connection can be found in the shimmering Bierkrug (Ironische Verfremdungen) (Ironic Alienations: Beer Mug) by German studio glass artist Erwin Eisch (1927-2022) from 1972.

It takes only 30 minutes to get from the foundation to Oktoberfest on an e-scooter. While Oktoberfest takes place annually, Eisch’s beer mug was only presented once in the exhibition Where Are You? Sculptures by Erwin Eisch at the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung. The beer mug, made of mould-blown and free-formed glass, is roughly the same size as a real beer mug at Munich’s Oktoberfest.

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The façade consists of dark-colored concrete mixed with black quartz stones, causing it to shimmer in the sunlight. Designed by raumstation Architekten, the building’s distinctively clear architectural style references early 20th-century industrial architecture and clearly sets itself apart from the surrounding buildings in terms of façade and style.

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Works from the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collection are occasionally displayed as special loans in selected museums and exhibition venues. For instance, pieces by Tony Cragg and Ann Wolff were exhibited in the permanent exhibition The Color of Glass at Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich, and can now be viewed in the current anniversary exhibition Future Horizons. Glass in Contemporary Art. Tanya Lyons’ glass feather wings, ‘Drift’, will be on display at MusVerre in France starting spring 2026.

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Approximately 70 artworks from the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collection are presented in each of the changing exhibitions in the BlackBox and BlackBox FirstFloor in the north of Munich. The other 95% of the collection is stored in an external art depot. The objects and installations featuring glass, as well as the contemporary photographs, are kept under optimal climatic conditions.

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The 70-centimetre-high glass object entitled Thumb was created in 1977 by German studio glass artist Erwin Eisch as an artistic gesture. The work was on display in 2024 in the exhibition The World in My Hand, which explored the traces of smartphones in contemporary art. In the accompanying catalog the physician and philosopher Dr. Manfred Spitzer explores the phenomenon of the “cell phone thumb”.

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For over 10 years, the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung has been promoting mineralogical teaching kits for school lessons. They make scientific concepts and phenomena not only visible, but also tangible. What is the difference between glass, crystal, mineral, and rock? What do the minerals that make up cell phone chargers, semiconductor chips, or a simple coffee cup look like? How does double refraction work and why is Mars red? The teaching kit provides answers to all these questions and more

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The optimal temperature for storing photographs is 15-20 degrees Celsius with a humidity of between 30 and 40%. The glass for our artworks is melted at a temperature range of 1,500-1,600 degrees Celsius.

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On 19 October 2024, there were around 670 smartphones in the 200m2 BlackBox exhibition room at the same time. In addition to the numerous art works in the The World in My Hand exhibition, 125 visitors attended the Long Night of Munich Museums at the exhibition space at 7 p.m. The exhibition The World in My Hand explored the traces of the smartphone in contemporary art. Since its invention in 2007, this object has revolutionized our communication and media use worldwide within a very short time and has become an indispensable part of our lives.

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A total of 2,455 LEDs not only illuminate the exhibition rooms, but also the artworks on display. The lighting design firm Ingenieure Bamberger, which is also responsible for the impressive lighting at Neuschwanstein Castle, is responsible for this extraordinary lighting concept. The 2,455 individual LEDs earned the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung the 2023 German Lighting Design Award in the category “Museum”. This annual prize honors outstanding achievements in lighting and architectural design.

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The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung database contains a total of 1,134 works of art by various artists that have been purchased since the foundation began collecting. However, if you consider the individual components – for example, a work of art may comprise several photographs or objects – then the collection actually contains around 1,566 items.  This is the case, for example, with the work Everyone Has Somebody But Me by artist Silvia Levenson, which was on display in the exhibition Love, Maybe from 7 February to 17 July, 2025 and consists of a total of five small glass objects in the shape of perfume bottles.