Held Together with Water

The recently founded (2004) and very actively acquisitive Verbund Collection integrates contemporary American and European art with works created since 1970. Its two central areas of interest are pieces exploring ideas of performance or space and place. Under the rubric of performance, Verbund, funded by the German power company of the same name, has gathered a substantial block of early Cindy Sherman, along with works by Valerie Export, Birgit Jurgenssen, Francesca Woodman, Sarah Lucas, Urs Luthi, Gilbert and George and Gillian Wearing. Under the rubric of "spaces/places," holdings range from the works of Gordon Matta-Clark, which intervene in existing architectural structures, through Fred Sandback's Minimalist drawings in thread, to the organically formed objects of Ernest Neto, and include Louise Lawler, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jeff Wall, Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, Simon Starling, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Gabriel Orozco and Loan Nguyen.