Lasting Success: the Gipsformerei
News from 12/21/2016
The budget committee of the Bundestag recently decided to support the Berliner Gipsformerei with a grant of 520,000 euros. We spoke with Miguel Helfrich, director of the long-established replica workshop, about why that's important and what the money will be used for.
Mr. Helfrich, what is it that makes the Gipsformerei so special?
The Gipsformerei (Replica Workshop) has been around since 1819 and has been creating museum replicas without interruption since it was founded. As a result, we now own more than 7,000 castings of artworks that cover many different periods and cultures – a unique archive of global art. We've retained a mastery of production techniques that have been forgotten in many places. Furthermore, a number of our casts are historically significant in their own right. The reason is that some of the originals have unfortunately not survived, or they have been damaged. But the casts, some of which are two hundred years old, have been preserved, and they still show the historical condition of the original work of art.
Recently, the budget committee of the Bundestag approved additional funds for the Gipsformerei. Why was this grant important?
It represents a major opportunity for us. One unique aspect of the Gipsformerei is that we have an extraordinarily diverse collection, and not only that, we're also capable of making high-quality casts of monumental works. In recent years, the demand for larger than life-size replicas in particular has grown dramatically. Other workshops in Europe that make art replicas can no longer fulfil large orders at the high level of quality that we provide. Yet we're still working at the historic production site of 1892, even though the collection has grown steadily. We're actually always short on space, especially when we get large orders. As a stopgap, we're currently still using our model hall as an extra workshop and production site. To correct this situation, we're planning on using the recently approved funding for a dedicated workshop building with extra storage space on the grounds of the Gipsformerei.
What do these large orders look like?
Some of the largest orders we've received recently have come from the artist Jeff Koons, for example, and from a hotel in Düsseldorf that's made very extensive use of sculptures for its furnishings. Sometimes, museums also place large orders. Right now, for example, we're working on one from Mexico. The Museo Internacional del Barroco in Puebla focuses on the global spread of the Baroque aesthetic and its revival in the Neo-Baroque. The museum is fairly new, and it's still building up its collection. For its permanent exhibition, it has ordered a number of works, including the "Great Elector" – the 4.2-meter-high equestrian statue of Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg. We've been working on that one for twelve months now.
Why is that cast turning out to be so difficult?
The "Great Elector" is actually one of the most monumental forms in our collection and hasn't been replicated for over a hundred years. We're constructing this monumental figure out of almost 10,000 individual pieces that are then joined together, which is complex and time-consuming.
And Jeff Koons, what pieces was he interested in?
For his work "Gazing Ball" he ordered casts of classical works, like the Sleeping Ariadne, the Farnese Hercules, the Lycean Apollo, and a centaur – four replicas of each. That was a wonderful project.
Is it normal for you to get orders from individuals?
Yes, it's been normal ever since the beginning. Private individuals have always taken an interest in the Gipsformerei: Goethe ordered quite a lot here, and Wilhelm von Bode placed orders too. Of course, our largest customers today are museums and cultural institutions that are expanding their collections or having works restored, for example. And we don't restrict ourselves to Germany. Our work is very international – with orders coming from Mexico, Switzerland, China, Qatar, etc. Recently, we've drawn the attention of several artists too. Isa Genzken is one, in addition to Jeff Koons. Our clientele also includes architects as well as professional furnishers who might be redesigning the interiors of historic properties, for instance.
And then they get a tour of the workshops?
That's precisely our Achilles' heel. We do have catalogues for each section of the collection. But to be honest, they're practically ready for a museum themselves. They're black-and-white booklets with pictures that are sometimes really tiny. We haven't been able to issue new editions of them in a long time. That means customers have always had to come directly to us in the Gipsformerei to get a good idea of the selection and quality of the casts. Of course, that's not always possible. So we've now opted for an online catalogue that we're building up with the grant money from the federal government and the Kuratorium (Board) of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz.
Will all of the works be available in the online catalogue?
Definitely. We make our entire stock of molds available to everyone. And that imposes certain requirements on us: we have to keep a variety of techniques alive in order to offer the works we do. So we're constantly training ourselves in various production techniques. That includes very old, traditional processes like the work with core or gelatin molds that only a few people still master today. But we also use the somewhat newer silicon molds. To give one example, the "Great Elector" is based on an old core mold that we can still use today for replicas. If we only had a silicon mold for the "Great Elector," it would be worn out after ten years.
What about 3D scans?
Scans are a contact-free method that we also make use of. For quite a while now, we've been working with the Technische Universität Berlin to digitize pieces from our collection in cases where the originals are no longer preserved, or where they're unusually sensitive. We're also studying how analog and digital processes can best be combined – because the scan can't always capture the same amount of information as the casting mold.
You say the Gipsformerei has been selling work ever since it was founded. Can you tell from your sales ledgers what people were most interested in at various times?
It's difficult to construct a seamless narrative, because our historical books are unfortunately not complete. But the documents that exist do indicate what was in fashion when. For example, when the Amarna collection was exhibited in Berlin for the first time in the 1920s, the Gipsformerei was suddenly making casts of a great many Egyptian objects. It's a drawback that not all of our over 7,000 pieces are described in detail in any catalogue. We have a large collection of castings of objects from Latin America, for instance. There's not even a black-and-white catalogue for that, only a list in an old folder. One of my most pressing concerns is doing a proper review of those works too and showing them to the world. Our aim is to increase national and international awareness of this unique collection and to make it available to the public – including as a study collection.
Interview by Silvia Faulstich.