Egidio Marzona (03.10.1944 – 15.03.2026): Nachruf

Whenever anybody asked about his profession, Egidio Marzona would usually say: ‘I’m a collector.’ Visitors to his house in West Berlin could see for themselves that this perfectly described both his profession and his lifelong passion. Marzona loved not only surrounding himself with his collection and showing it to others, but also gathering people around him. While constantly smoking his pipe, he would passionately discuss art with his numerous guests, often late into the night. He had a remarkable ability to captivate his listeners not only with his profound knowledge of art, but also with his keen understanding of contemporary political and social issues.

A milestone in his adventurous life was 6 December 2016: Marzona donated his collection relating to the twentieth-century artistic avant-garde, which had grown to around 1.5 million objects, to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD). Having already given individual groups of works to Berlin museums, he decided to donate his overall collection to Dresden. A name was also quickly decided upon, and thus the ‘Archiv der Avantgarden – Egidio Marzona,’ or ADA for short, came into being.

Egidio Marzona (03.10.1944 – 15.03.2026): Nachruf

Egidio Marzona had been collecting for more than five decades. He began in the late 1960s, in the turbulent environment of conceptual art and the student movement, with objects that had previously interested few art collectors: Alongside artworks of all kinds, such as paintings, drawings, prints, furniture, and design objects, his focus was on documents and materials relating to artistic processes, and especially on so-called ‘ephemera’ such as invitations, posters, catalogues, and letters. These constitute a diverse range of materials that make artistic processes transparent. That was already a novelty in the world of contemporary art collectors, but what was unique was his approach to the objects – he arranged them in a specific order that differed fundamentally from the usual structure of public art archives. Marzona’s collection is non-hierarchical, heterogeneous, and unconventional. He treated all materials generated in the context of art production as equally valuable. Hence, for him, a typed letter is just as significant as a painting, a small sketch on a napkin as important as a watercolour, a record as notable as a printed book or an art magazine.

The ADA in Dresden was conceived as a unique institution, a hybrid between a museum, a research centre, and a cultural facility. When the collection was donated in 2016, it was immediately decided that it should be housed in the Blockhaus on the bank of the River Elbe in Dresden, prominently situated directly next to the Augustus Bridge. An ideal choice. This building, originally constructed as the Neustadt Guardhouse in 1732, underwent a spectacular six-year redevelopment by the Spanish architectural firm Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos and was officially opened in early May 2024.

With the ADA, the Blockhaus became a place for exploring and negotiating the dynamic relationships between inside and outside, past and present. The space in between is the realm of memories, dreams, and visions. The ADA launched the presentation of its collection in May 2024 with the exhibition ‘Archive of Dreams: A Surrealist Impulse’; three further exhibitions followed. The ADA is not a museum in the traditional sense, but rather sees itself as a hub of artistic and everyday processes in the past, present, and future.

The result of this transformation, from a private collection into a public institution, is unparalleled anywhere in the world. The ADA combines an archive with a museum and a research centre. Visitors and researchers from Germany and abroad make the archive a vibrant forum for exchanging ideas, where new ways of thinking are generated and communicated to a wide audience through exhibitions, lectures, and workshops. The ADA functions as an open archive for all and as a repository of knowledge, where historical and social changes triggered by avant-garde theories and practices can be interlinked with contemporary discourses.

Egidio Marzona was closely involved in the process throughout, particularly with regard to the architectural design. One could see the joy on his face when, as early as January 2025 – after just six months and two exhibitions – the ADA was named Museum of the Year by AICA, the German section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). AICA juror Bernhard Schulz described it as a ‘courageous decision’ by the Free State of Saxony to ‘create and fund an entirely new institution.’ 

Marzona himself also showed great courage. He once said that, with its specific character, his collection was ‘just like real life.’ Above all, real life requires consistent principles, which for him meant not choosing the easy path, but the right one. We are grateful to Egidio Marzona for having pursued his vision with such consistency. He passed away on 15 March 2026 at the age of 81. We will miss him.

Rudolf Fischer, Director of the Archiv der Avantgarden – Egidio Marzona (ADA)