It is a magical place of art: the Münter House in Murnau. Right on its doorstep lies the famous Blue Land. Gabriele Münter and her artists’ group Der Blaue Reiter captured this landscape on canvas. It is therefore the ideal place for a conversation between Mon Muellerschoen and Korbinian Kohler about women in art, the dynamics of creative societies, the passion for collecting, and how and why art inspires our lives.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Mon, you suggested the Münter House in Murnau for this interview. Why?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
I believe in the power of places. Your hotel on Lake Tegernsee is such a place of energy, and the Münter House is one too. This woman was a visionary, and here, where she lived and worked for so long, thousands of images and emotions immediately pass through my mind.

Münter is a woman who asserted herself in the male-dominated art world of her time. She did not accept the centuries-long disadvantage of women. Gabriele Münter was completely ahead of her time; she lived in a way that women were not actually allowed to live back then. That is why she is a personal heroine to me, because she lived as freely as was possible and allowed herself so much.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
And is that something you want to honour retrospectively, so to speak, or do you feel we need more of that again today?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Yes, we need free spirits. Whether man or woman. People who follow their own path. I think we can learn a great deal from Münter, and I think this great artist is still not appreciated enough.

The position of women in society and in professional life has improved, especially in recent years thanks to movements such as MeToo, but none of us must stop fighting for it. Otherwise, everything can quickly revert to the way it was, because for thousands of years, men have been considered the stronger sex, while women tended to live withdrawn in the home and perform domestic duties. Women in Switzerland were granted the right to vote in 1971. That was only 50 years ago – that is nothing.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Gabriele Münter grew up at a time when women did not yet have the right to vote; that only came in 1918. How did Gabriele Münter come to art?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
She was essentially self-taught. No one supported her. Her good fortune was that she grew up in a very liberal-minded family. Her mother came from America, so there was already this liberal American idea of freedom within the family. She raised her daughters very freely.

In 1897, Gabriele Münter went to America with her sister Emmy for two years to visit relatives. She was only 20 years old at the time, and she had a camera with her. Without any training and without ever having enjoyed artistic support, she created an incredible body of photographs. She travelled through the United States, photographing people and landscapes, and even then one could see how extraordinary her ability was to understand image composition.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Mon, you are one of the most important art icons in the German art scene. You are a columnist for BUNTE, you played a major role in shaping the Hubert Burda Media Collection, as well as the collections of other major German collectors. You are a member of various committees, on the boards of several museums, and curator of many exhibitions. Is this desire to move women more into the centre of the art world something you also implement in your daily work?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Yes, absolutely. Throughout my life, I have always worked freelance, never as an employee – that was always important to me. I think I am a good team player, but I believe I would find it difficult with a boss, whether male or female, because I simply need my freedom.

I have always worked with women. In my small company, I like to employ women, especially mothers and single mothers, because I know how difficult it is, also from my own experience, to manage the balancing act between career and family as a mother. I also enjoy working with female artists. I like to be a kind of mentor to them and pass on my experience. Men often do that better because they have learned it over centuries.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
You support women, but you also collect art yourself, don’t you?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
I collect very young artists, and they are allowed to be a little edgy. I love the energy of rebels, like Münter was – people who give me new horizons and possibilities. I am interested in abysses, I am interested in the obsessed.

I grew up with a father who was somewhat different, who collected butterflies – more than 150,000 of them. My father had this obsession that also lives within many artists. That is why I love working with people who burn for their cause. You, dear Korbinian, are also such a madman in the positive sense. A special hotelier who thinks in new and different ways and with full passion.

When you collect art, you get to know the artists. These are often very intimate, very psychological conversations. The foundations for that were certainly laid, to some extent, by my strange parental home.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Please tell us something about your parental home. Your father collected butterflies, but he did not make a living from that, did he?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
My father was a qualified engineer. He came from a poor family and worked for everything himself. He earned the money for his studies at the Polytechnic in Munich as a bricklayer – he was the first and only person in his family to study. He also began collecting butterflies at the age of 13. He simply could not help himself.

When we were little, my brother and I, we always flew around the world with a butterfly net. Then, as small children, we had to catch and kill these beautiful animals. It had to happen very quickly, because the valuable thing about a butterfly is the dust on its wings. And if they bump into anything, it disappears very quickly.

My father also bred butterflies himself. I often woke up in the morning because many of them had hatched again. It was a special sound, that fleeting flutter of wings, because a short time later they had to die.

I still remember how often we drove to the butterfly exchange in Prague – behind the Iron Curtain, when we were very young. He smuggled all the animals across the border and brought his new acquisitions back again. We children sat in the back seat as if nailed down while the border guard inspected our car.

At the time, my father had a suitcase made with a padded secret compartment. It was constructed in such a way that even an X-ray machine could not detect the butterflies. He also smuggled some specimens out of China. We always said: “Papa, you’re crazy, we’re not getting you out of a Chinese prison camp.” But he could not help himself; he was a mad collector.

Great collectors think like that. They have to possess the things that fascinate them, that trigger something in them. It is the same in the art world.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
And do you think that shaped you?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Very much.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
For your work today?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Yes, also in dealing with people who are different. Dealing with people who think outside the box. My father lived for his butterflies. And I live for art.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Wow, wonderful.
This issue of Momente Magazine also focuses strongly on the theme of society. What role, what area of society, or how strongly do you see the influence of art on society? Does art shape society, or is art the mirror of society?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Both. I always say, somewhat casually, that every company should employ an artist-in-residence in order to stay close to the pulse of the times, to sense currents early on. I believe artists are the seismographs of our society. Artists see more quickly what is coming. They react faster, they dare to say things that are uncomfortable.

Today, I often have the feeling that companies are no longer brave because employees are afraid of causing offence, of changing unfavourable conditions. Artists dare to do that, and artists influence. But of course, they are also influenced by society, by politics, by current events.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
What interests you more: artists who manage, through their provocations, to cross thresholds of thought and thereby change society, or artists who are able to sense society so sensitively that it is, so to speak, reflected in their art and shown to people?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Actually, those who dare, who are difficult, who provoke, who frighten, who also cause fear.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Hubert Burda was one of the first to hang parts of his private collection in the company, one of the first in Germany.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
And together with my partner at the time, Judith Milberg, I was allowed to develop and implement the concept for it. It was very exciting to see what art did within the company, in the employees’ spaces. Many said: “Wow, we work in a museum,” and this engagement with art often created more communication.

Wonderful conversations came about. “Why? Why is this hanging here? What is Mario Merz’s Iglu doing here?” Hubert Burda always said that it was very important to him that art should enter the house, because the people working at the publishing company also produce art and are themselves creative. That was and is the concept of the Hubert Burda Media Collection: “Art, Media and Communication.”

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
So you mean that critical art should also shake up employees and encourage them to think outside the box?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Yes.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Through you, Hubert Burda has a very special concept. If I have understood correctly, once a month employees may come to you and say, I would like a picture in my office – and sometimes it can even be something great, like a Warhol?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
If a Warhol is currently hanging in the Artothek, the employee may borrow the work for their office. The Artothek was founded in 1996, and it is indeed the case: once a month, I open it, and employees are allowed to borrow art for their offices.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
How should one imagine such a selection process?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
I developed a digital database for my collections. I look after the art of several private and corporate collections – around 7,000 works in total, from antiquity to the present day. At Burda, the employee comes into the archive and can choose from many works.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Today, art is mainly a personal expression of an individual or of a social situation.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
But that was true then as it is today, because every artist paints a landscape differently, sets up a composition differently, paints a figure differently, places the light, the shadows, the colours differently. That is art. As the saying goes: art comes from skill. That is true today, and it was true then.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Can you remember a moment when you were so moved by a picture that you cried?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
It has been a long time since I attended a church service, but I come from a very Bavarian-Catholic environment. When I began studying art history, we went to St Peter’s Basilica for a seminar. I was allowed to descend into the tomb attributed to Jesus. One does not normally get there, and when I then stood at the altar in St Peter’s Basilica – the staircase to the tomb is directly beneath the altar – and looked at the figures, the light … that was a very moving moment.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
What would you wish art to trigger in people?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
I wish that it would trigger something at all. What I wish least is for it to leave people cold. Something – whether it is a positive or a negative reaction, any reaction at all.

The longer I work with art, the more cautious I become. If something excites me quickly, I usually step back and wait a little. Is it lasting, or does the enthusiasm fade? It has to be a provocation, it has to frighten you, it has to delight you, it has to trigger something in you. That has to happen.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Is that also your definition of good art?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Good art is always something you are not finished with for a very long time. Good art is when you have something at home and look at it for years and keep discovering something new. Good art is when you keep engaging with the artists. When you notice that through it, you develop new ideas, that you have thoughts you perhaps did not have before.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Earlier, we spoke about leisure and contemplation, and about the speed of our time.
Do people today even still have the time and the leisure to truly perceive art?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
When you see how successful museums are, how people queue outside them, that makes me optimistic. When I studied art history in Munich in the 1980s, I almost never saw a queue outside a museum.

It is actually paradoxical, but of course consumption is different today. Above all because of the internet, digital transformation and the flood of images – everything has become faster. Our way of seeing has changed. The people who now come to my Artothek are different people from before the transformation. They are people who are very, very visual, who react very visually, who have seen a lot. As a result, they also know more and want more than people did 20 or 30 years ago. That is very interesting.

Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, there is in me a great longing for slowness. That is why I recommend: go to a museum, allow one work to have a long effect on you, and engage with it intensively. It is a true wellness programme in our hectic times.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
That would of course be very desirable. In recent years, art has become quite a popular investment field, which has made it even more interesting for certain social classes. Art has increasingly become a means of differentiation, a status symbol and a social vehicle.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
It has always been a status symbol. First among the aristocracy, later among the upper middle classes, today across all social strata. In the past, those who could afford it had themselves portrayed and collected art.

Today, there is an enormous amount of movement in the art market: new technologies, new collectors from rapidly growing markets such as Africa and Asia are changing the art world. And through digitalisation, the whole world is moving closer together.

I am very fortunate to work with many collectors who collect out of passion. Young collectors often ask the question: “Will this still be worth something in ten years?” Then I always have to smile and say: “Why don’t you ask your bank advisor?” Honestly: I am not a clairvoyant.

Knowledge helps, but only very few artists make it into the elite. I always advise new collectors: collect out of passion, set yourself a pain threshold. For some, that is 500 euros, for others 5,000, for someone else five million.

If they then buy a painting, a sculpture, an art object, and look at it for ten years and have ten years of joy from it, and in the twelfth year they say, I have developed, I have seen enough of it, it no longer says anything to me – and they sell the picture at a loss, then they have still lived with the picture for ten years. A car is more uneconomical.

Nevertheless, of course, I try to ensure that the art has lasting value, not only visually but also materially. And with a little luck, one buys the next Picasso early. But who that will be, no one can predict, because many artists only prove their genius in retrospect.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
You have already mentioned one of your business areas: art consulting. You also have your own art company, the online platform Wunderkunst.shop, where you sell art by young, emerging artists. As mentioned earlier, you are active on many curatorial boards and with museums. Your biggest client is Hubert Burda.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
He is my mentor, and I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to work with this extraordinary, visionary man since 1989.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
What do you do with collectors – or do you work at all with collectors who see art primarily as an investment portfolio?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Not really. I find it more exciting to work with people who have a passion for a particular theme. With new collectors, I like to help find and develop that theme – through my expertise, my contacts, my knowledge. For me, it is important that something emerges, that the collection tells a story.

And when everything comes together, it may become a story such as that of Hubert Burda, who comes from a family in which both his mother and father already collected. His brother Frieder had one of the largest private collections in Germany and endowed a public museum in Baden-Baden with his own money.

Hubert Burda bought pictures at different points in his life. I call them the Burda icons – works that touched him because they express something that was happening in his life at the time of acquisition. There is, for example, a painting by Sandro Chia, an Italian painter who was very famous in the 1980s. It is a huge cross-shaped painting on rice paper and shows Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian freedom fighter, life-size in the centre.

Hubert Burda bought this painting in the early 1980s, when he had decided – he had been editor-in-chief of BUNTE in the early 1970s – that the magazine BUNTE would move from Offenburg to Munich. Munich was where the film scene was: Volker Schlöndorff, they were all there, yes. Freddie Mercury was there, Fassbinder was there.

And then he moved with BUNTE. And of course, for the people of Offenburg, where the publishing house had been founded in 1945, that was a blow. It was this difficult path he had to take, and that is what this picture means to him. This depiction of Garibaldi fighting his way forward through this river. And when you look at the work, how the protagonist, leaning on his stick, truly exhausted, struggles forward – that touched Hubert Burda at the time when he had to make this difficult decision. Against his home in Offenburg, in favour of Munich.

And that is what is so beautiful about his collection: there are many pictures that show motifs reminding him of an important phase in his life.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Would you say that building a good collection is, in itself, a form of art?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Absolutely. One has to invest a great deal of time. One should not rely only on art advisors; one has to face one’s innermost wishes, fears and longings. One has to learn to see, read literature, artist catalogues, go to exhibitions, studios, academies.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
As an art advisor, would you say that one cannot automatically say: the more expensive a painting, the better it is?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Absolutely not. But of course, a very expensive picture is more likely to retain its value. Still, every great painter – Warhol and Basquiat and all the others – also painted bad pictures.

Naturally, you cannot buy just anything; you have to know whether it is genuine, whether it is good, which period it comes from, whether that was the artist’s good and art-historically important period. Not every Warhol is a good Warhol. A great deal of experience and knowledge is required.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Do you think it is important, as a collector or buyer of a painting, to know the artist personally?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
That is a difficult question. Personally, I always want to know the artist. I have already experienced collectors buying a painting and only afterwards getting to know the artist – and then they did not like them. And then we had the mess.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
I asked Dr Peter Haller, the founder of Serviceplan, the same question last time, and he said: I am not interested in that at all, I do not want to get to know the artist. Of course, he is still from the old school. He collects out of passion. But things have changed through the internet, through this digital transformation, where we essentially have access to everything.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
In the past, it was a little more mysterious and more like a sanctuary. This opening also happened thanks to Corona, because artists suddenly opened their studios as well, filmed and broadcast from the studio, and explained their creative process.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Are there any trends in the art market at the moment that can be recognised?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
People say painting is dead. I don’t think so. At the moment, video art and ceramics may be trending, and digital art such as NFTs. But good art is not tied to any medium, in my opinion.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Suppose you could take one artwork in the world. And you would not have to pay anything for it.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Favourite question. That is the favourite question. I don’t even know what to answer. I love it. In any case, Matisse. I would become a thief for Matisse.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Okay. And why Matisse?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
I don’t know. Matisse simply touches something in me. And that colourfulness and the forms. I would do a great deal for Matisse. I think he is magnificent; he touches my romantic soul. And he also inspired many contemporaries.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Because society is the theme, why did you come to Gabriele Münter?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Your magazine is about societies. And artists’ groups are societies. Whether it is Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter, the Secession. I have always admired the intensity of artists’ groups.

In addition, Münter is a woman who inspires me, and women in art are currently an important topic both in art and in society. Gabriele Münter is therefore a role model because she was completely unconventional. And her artists’ group, Der Blaue Reiter, also broke through social norms.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Do you think there are still enough courageous artists today? Those who, apart from commerce and purely for the sake of the cause itself, dare and have the desire to advance social issues through their art?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Yes, I do think so.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
So there are young people, and especially young women, who take a strong stand and position themselves for emancipation, for feminism?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
There are several. I can name several for you.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Also that courageous?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Yes, for example Janine Mackenroth, Sophia Süßmilch or Lucia Mattes, who is still studying with Jan Bock at the academy in Karlsruhe. Süßmilch is an incredibly courageous feminist who thinks in new ways. Sophie Schmidt electrifies with her performances. There are several who are very courageous and move ahead.

When you then look again at art fairs, of course these positions, which are a little difficult and complicated, are not so easy to sell.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
What are you most proud of in your art career?

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
That is a difficult question, because I was not raised to be proud of myself. I would need a few more years of therapy for that. laughs I simply never learned it.

I am actually proud that I have come this far and that I have worked for all of this myself. Of course, with the help of my wonderful husband. I must not forget that; he supported me incredibly. But the fact that I have followed this path and that so many people trust me, that I can live from my passion for art – that makes me proud.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Thank you, Mon.

MON MUELLERSCHOEN:
Thank you.