Haupt Collection

Haupt Collection “Thirty Pieces of Silver – Art and Money”

The money art collection of the Berlin lawyer Prof. Dr. Stefan Haupt, honorary professor for copyright law at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, comprises over 300 works in a variety of techniques and approaches. What all the works have in common is an artistic engagement with the theme of money – and so the thematic collection offers a wide range of insights into how artists deal with money and reflect on money and monetary phenomena. In addition to unique objects, ready-mades, photographs or collages using real money, there is a wide range of artists’ money in the form of prints and paintings. Artists’ books, posters and video works complete the picture – as well as, more recently, works of digital art in the context of modern media and the Internet.

Highlights of the collection include works by Joseph Beuys, a cycle of subtle assemblages with which Barton Lidicé Beneš has related himself to various currencies, as well as the light object »$« by the Frenchman Mathieu Mercier, photographs by Jerry Berndt, Timm Ulrichs and Michael Timpson.

The content of the collection spans the period from August 15, 1971 to the abolition of cash. The 37th President of the USA (January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974) Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994) stopped the nominal gold standard of the US dollar on August 15, 1971. In 1973, the Bretton Woods system was officially abolished.

The collection also includes numerous artist coins and medals, objects with integrated original coins and coin depictions – including rubbings and photographs – by the following artists: Irene Andessner, Ian Anüll, Stephan Balkenhol, Elly Baltus, Olivia Berckemeyer, BEWEGUNG NURR & Florian Göpfert, JSG Boggs, Anne de Vries, Lex Drewinski, Roland Eckelt, Thomas Eller, Joachim Froese, Melle Hammer, Jan Henderikse, Elmar Hess, Horst Hussel, Helmut King, Werner Klotz, Germaine Koh, Vollrad Kutscher, Alicja Kwade, Wolfgang Nieblich, Andor Orand, Andor Orand, Polak & Van Bekkum, Jochen Schamal, Franziska Schwarzbach, Gil Shachar, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Sebastian Siechold, Anton Stankowski, United Transnational Republics, Philipp Valenta, Yuri Veerman, Albert Verkade, Heidi Wagner-Kerkhof, Stefan Wewerka, Hans Hs Winkler, Vadim Zakharov, Helmut Zobl.

Images of the works can be seen on the Internet.

The group of medals in the collection presents the results of ambitious excursions between applied and fine art – in this respect, the “quasi” coins have a cross-border effect and are suitable for questioning the value of real currencies.

Works from the collection are presented as part of special exhibitions and have been on display since 2011 in numerous exhibitions and participations in Berlin, Stendal, Leipzig, Halle (Saale), Budapest, Baden-Baden, Plauen, Mannheim, Hamburg, Salzburg, Hall in Tirol, Stuttgart and recently in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford.

Current Exhibition:

until August 30, 2025; visit on request:

Holy Dirty Money – DENKSTAHL – Exhibition of the Haupt Collection at the Association of German Guarantee Banks, Berlin, Schützenstraße 6a, 10117 Berlin

In addition, selected works have been presented since October 2016 in the bimonthly magazine “Stiftung&Sponsoring” with cover images and short descriptive texts.

Comment on the Piece Depicted Above

Anne de Vries: Based on Memory, 2012, nickel silver CuNi12Zn24, 4 parts, each 0.3 × Ø 5 cm. Photograph: Anne de Vries

The group of medals in the collection presents the results of ambitious excursions between applied and free art – in this respect, the “quasi” coins have a cross-border effect and are suitable for questioning the value of real currencies.

In his work “Based on Memory”, the Dutch-born artist Anne de Vries, who lives in Amsterdam and Berlin, takes up the question of our perception of the 1 euro coin that we hold in our hands every day. He asked several people to draw the front of the coin. The result is astonishing! None of them was obviously able to visually reproduce the side of the euro coin. This work makes it clear that we are able to identify a euro coin as such in everyday life, but fail to actively reproduce it. Attention and perception are therefore not working properly. So what do we actually perceive?

The German version of this text was provided by Hermann Büchner, curator of the Haupt Collection.