Passion affects the body as stress does; it doesn’t matter if it’s caused by a beautiful woman or a beautiful painting.” And “When I buy an artwork, hormonal changes take place in my body.” The man who made these statements is an endocrinologist: a professor, doctor and a frequent buyer of art – old, new, without categories. His love of doing this turned him into a collector who has created for himself and his collection a very special domain: the ‘me Collectors Room Berlin’ at Auguststraße 68. The ‘me’, not easy to understand on first sight, stands for ‘moving energies’.

The private museum that houses the Thomas Olbricht Collection is in itself a highlight of the steadily-developing Berlin art scene. Directly on Berlin’s best art gallery stretch, a terrific location, the glass and concrete building at no. 68 almost impudently overpowers the traditional facades of the area – a hot-spot that grabs the attention instantly.

The collection, consisting of over 2000 works, is top-notch. The first exhibition is both clever and modest, giving precedence to up-and-coming talent and letting artists like Cindy Sherman, Marlene Dumas, Maurizio Cattelan, Jake and Dinos Chapman Richard Prince take a back seat, for the time being. A ‘collection within a collection’ is Dr. Olbricht’s Wunderkammer full of curiosities. All a question of hormones, as the professor explained.