Multiple Choice. Die Sammlung MAT zum 100. Geburtstag von Peter Ludwig

In the organizer's words:

Peter Ludwig (* July 9, 1925 in Koblenz; † July 22, 1996 in Aachen) acquired Edition MAT in the early 1990s and initially gave it to the Ludwig Museum on permanent loan in 1992. This important collection of contemporary positions with a particular focus on French, German and Italian artists represents a rarely shown ensemble of works from the Edition MAT ("Multiplication d'Art transformable") and comprises 26 objects. Behind the unwieldy term lies an innovative and complex concept that was initially aimed at works of art that could be changed and moved.

The Romanian-Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri (1930-2024) came up with the idea in the 1950s. Renowned artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Christo, Jean Arp, Arman, Roy Lichtenstein, Davide Boriani, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely participated in the Edition MAT.

Edition MAT was created in the context of fundamental efforts in the 1960s to democratize culture and make works of art "suitable for everyday use" and generally "available". In this sense, multiplication meant not only the idea of the multiple - the mass production of identical objects - but also the introduction of variations through the optical, mechanical or physical participation of the viewer. To the extent that the viewer himself became the creator of the artwork, the artist's gesture also receded into the background. In Spoerri's concept, movement, change, duplication and de-hierarchization were inextricably linked. The Edition MAT enterprise was in line with the fundamental efforts of the 1960s to democratize culture.

On July 9, 2025, Peter Ludwig, the renowned Koblenz art collector and founder of the Ludwig Museum Koblenz, would have turned 100 years old. Together with his wife Irene (née Monheim), he established a renowned foundation and is the namesake of a total of thirteen museums and institutions that are firmly anchored in the national and international museum landscape.
The exhibition at the Ludwig Museum will be complemented by important loans of MAT objects from the collection of the Cologne gallery Der Spiegel. The Edition MAT reflects in a special way Peter Ludwig's interest in the most diverse genres of art, in innovative concepts and his openness to the playful and experimental.