2016 - News - Detail Page - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Salutations,

When you, dear Mr Schuster, took up your post as Director General of the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich in 1998, you were asked whether the position of Director General of the National Museums in Berlin, which became vacant the following year, would not be an even more attractive job for you. Your response to this question was a true cobbler's answer: "Excuse me, but such considerations have the charm of great simplicity at best. ... Munich is so wonderful that it 's all I can think about."

But, ladies and gentlemen, Peter-Klaus Schuster really meant it back then! I have it on good authority that it was quite an effort to lure him away from Munich again. But in the end he had to succumb to the charm of Berlin and its unique museum and cultural landscape, and so after just one year he returned to the wide-open arms of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

Born in 1943 in Calw, Württemberg, his path to art was mapped out early on. His family had an uncle who, as an art dealer, championed Willi Baumeister and was one of the first to exhibit the young Horst Antes. According to Schuster, this art-loving uncle "was looked up to in the family". He began his studies in art history, German studies and philosophy in Tübingen and continued in Zurich, Frankfurt and Göttingen. Anyone who listens to Schuster's speeches and reads his writings will realise how much these three subjects come together in his work as a profound and excellent rhetorician. In each of his always witty speeches, he seems to wrestle with himself, the means of repetition and exaggeration is developed to mastery, captured in keywords on palm-sized pieces of paper that are already legendary. And even when Peter-Klaus Schuster had to say the same thing for the fifth time in a row at the back of the list of speakers, you always had the feeling that you were hearing it for the first time: Only when Schuster has spoken does it really sit with everyone! A certain acting, even self-dramatising
talent cannot be overlooked, perhaps also the result of an early
encounter and collaboration with director Michael Verhoeven.

In 1974, Schuster completed his doctorate with a remarkable dissertation on Dürer's Melancholy copperplate engraving, which, as he once said, remains a "model of modernism" for him to this day. And for all his doer qualities, occasionally paired with a certain intemperance, an intemperance of will and an intemperance against himself, Peter-Klaus Schuster is nevertheless something of a melancholic at his core. Able to listen and show affection in personal dialogue. The scholarship with Willibald Sauerländer at the Central Institute for Art History in Munich, Schuster's "wonderful city", which followed his doctorate, was something of an accolade for the aspiring art historian. Munich and Berlin were the two cities of destiny in his professional life.

But first he went to Werner Hofmann at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Hofmann was and is a master in his field and became a formative influence on Schuster because he demonstrated what Schuster later continued to do independently, namely not simply hanging pictures, but showing their temporal and artistic context with didactic subtlety. In his farewell speech, Hofmann attested to Schuster's enormous aptitude for museum practice, a particular joy in design and a striking ability to think through new forms of communication.

The next stations were Nuremberg, then Hamburg again, then Munich and finally Berlin from 1988. These were ups and downs in geographical terms at best, but in terms of his career, things went purposefully uphill. His professional stations and tasks made Peter-Klaus Schuster a generalist who - like few others in his field - is able to survey almost all eras of art history with equal expertise. He was responsible for the 19th century at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, for the Old Masters at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and for 20th century German art at the Bayerische
Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich.

His first ten years in Berlin continued in exactly the same vein: from 1988 he was initially deputy director of the Nationalgalerie, and after German reunification he became director of the Alte Nationalgalerie on Museum Island, later devoting himself to the Hamburger Bahnhof and the delicate and difficult question of its first installation. He then played a key role in the design of the Berggruen Museum in the Stülerbau-West and subsequently took over the management of the Nationalgalerie with all its buildings before new challenges lured him to Munich in 1998, as already mentioned.

When he returned to Berlin just one year later, however, the office of Director General became a different one: he not only headed the National Museums, but also - as primus inter pares - the Nationalgalerie. Mr Schuster, you once said that the only justification for a director-general's move from Munich to Berlin was the big projects that were only possible in Berlin.

There were plenty of opportunities for major projects in Berlin, and Peter-Klaus Schuster shaped them together with Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, the president of his foundation. As soon as he returned to Berlin, the Museum Island Masterplan was adopted, and with the opening of the Old National Gallery in 2001 and the Bode Museum in 2006, the progress of this major project of national dimensions became apparent. With the completion of the restoration of the Pergamon Altar in 2004 and the relocation of the Egyptian Museum and Nefertiti from Charlottenburg to the Altes Museum in 2005, the success story of the Museum Island continued, attracting well over 3 million visitors for the first time last year. This trend will continue when the New Museum opens next year. The construction of the entrance building and the refurbishment of the Pergamon and Altes Museum will then be on the agenda in the coming years - work for at least one successor.

But the Museum Island Masterplan is not enough: as soon as he took office, Mr Schuster said that the reorganisation and location planning of the State Museums would have to be fundamentally reconsidered and developed further with a view to the future, with the so-called "castling", i.e. the relocation of the Alte Meiser from the Gemäldegalerie at the Kulturforum to a new gallery building to be built in direct connection with the Bode Museum, being the decisive step. You, dear Mr Schuster, saw very clearly that only in this way could the Museum Island become a place where the art and culture of Europe from early times to the 19th century could be experienced in an encyclopaedic and at the same time relational way.

But Peter-Klaus Schuster is not just the enthusiastic visionary of expansive splendour who wants everything and does everything at the same time. He was enough of a realist to know that during his time in office, the priority had to be the restoration of the Museum Island, which is where the entire strength of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation lies.

However, in addition to the major goals for the future, the past decade also brought a whole series of impressive successes for the Staatliche Museen, which can be largely attributed to Peter-Klaus Schuster: The reopening of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Schloss Köpenick, the establishment of the Helmut Newton Foundation in the Museum of Photography in Jebensstrasse, the opening of the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof together with the addition of the Rieck Hall and the recently completed Stülerbau-Ost with the "Surreal Worlds" from the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, to name just the most important events.

And even the first plans for the Humboldt Forum bore the signature of Peter-Klaus Schuster. Let's let him have his say: "It's about broadening the perspectives of our understanding of the world, to show that we see not only with images from art history, but also with images from the natural sciences, with images from everyday life as well as with powerful clichés. The world in the centre of Berlin in a dialogue between the arts and sciences - that is our common goal.

Peter-Klaus Schuster is a man who does not daydream, but strives imaginatively to realise his visions. And when plans, no matter how foolhardy, come within the realms of feasibility, they are realised powerfully and sometimes even to the limit. The State Museums' exhibition programme has traits of excess, but is also incredibly successful. The general director mutates into an artistic director at times. And for him, exhibitions are something like a form of vivid reflection on art.

Immediately after taking office, Schuster caused a stir with the exhibition "The XXth Century. A Century of Art in Germany" caused quite a stir. It was an exhibition whose critical view of art in Germany triggered fierce controversy. But it was a typical Schuster show, an exhibition that simply had to be seen; well over 600,000 visitors thought so too. His Andy Warhol retrospective in 2001 was honoured by the art critics' association as "Exhibition of the Year", as was the show "Art in the GDR" in 2003. The "MoMA in Berlin", realised with the help of the Friends of the National Gallery, is already a legend, and "The Most Beautiful Frenchmen" is well on the way to becoming one.

Under Schuster's leadership, the National Museums also significantly increased their presence abroad with exhibitions from South America to Japan. And the "Cult of the Artist", which is currently being celebrated in various museums in his empire and will be in the coming months, is Peter-Klaus Schuster's big farewell show. Once again, a gifted provider of ideas and inspiration presents himself to the public, who has once again managed to drive several of his houses to a peak performance under a common, overarching theme.

You, dear Mr Schuster, were once described as "Mr Universe of the art landscape". I take this as a compliment, because your work output and workload are just as boundless as your plans and ideas, and you have spared yourself the least. Yet you are not a classic soloist in the international battle for lucrative exhibitions. Your well-founded strategic alliance with Munich and Dresden to form a kind of "holy alliance" of the three largest German museum complexes proves exactly the opposite. This "art-loving trinity", as DIE ZEIT called it, is the obvious consequence when it comes to making our country with its federal structure more visible internationally, especially in the cultural sector, whether in Dubai, China or elsewhere.

From the very beginning, her vision of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin was to make it visible and effective as a large international universal museum and at the same time as the largest national museum of the Germans. This universal museum should be the non-university research institution with the most visitors, a place where research comes to its objects and to a public that is completely mixed in terms of generations and nations. To achieve this, however, you needed more than just visions; you knew very well that this would not be enough. As part of a broad-based education campaign, you founded the Academy of the National Museums in Berlin, and the plan for a children's academy was also born. You fought for free admission for children and young people up to the age of 16 and persuaded your museums to implement numerous cultural education programmes. This is where the General became an enlightener with missionary traits, and it was a real concern of his.

There were times, dear Mr Schuster, when - despite all your success - you also had to put up with biting criticism that was unjust in its exaggeration. Nevertheless, you continued on your path undeterred, and it takes a certain nonchalance for you to simply remark succinctly: "If you always reacted the same way to things like that, you wouldn't be able to get to the important things."

Unusual personalities like you, dear Mr Schuster, lead such an office in a special way. And yet you always saw yourself in the tradition of important predecessors. Much of what you brilliantly accomplished had undergone important changes under Wolf-Dieter Dube, and you hardly missed an opportunity to point this out. For all his self-promotion, Schuster is a gentleman of cautious modesty. He never adorned himself with other people's feathers, and that, dear Mr Schuster, is what true greatness is all about!

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and its State Museums owe you an immense debt of gratitude, and I will remember the eight months we spent together with respect and affection for a long time to come. Our best wishes accompany you for the time that now lies ahead, and from tomorrow your diary will simply read: "Free! Free! Free!"

Ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, a farewell is always a new beginning. Much has been achieved, but further Herculean tasks await the new Director General: I would like to welcome Michael Eissenhauer.

Dear Mr Eissenhauer, the Board of Trustees elected you to this position because it was firmly convinced that you are best prepared for it. An art historian by training, your professional career has been closely linked to the world of museums from the very beginning. Nuremberg and Coburg were important stops along the way, and in Kassel, as Director of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, you took on a great deal of responsibility by being responsible for several museums and also for important construction projects; you will need this experience in Berlin. Your election as President of the German Museums Association a few years ago shows that the experts have confidence in you; you will also need that in Berlin.

You will run this office differently to Peter-Klaus Schuster, and that is a good thing. However, I am sure that you will also build on the work of your predecessor, successfully develop it further and put your own stamp on it. We wish you strength and fortune in this endeavour!

Today, ladies and gentlemen, is a special day in that it is a double new beginning. Peter-Klaus Schuster has expanded the Nationalgalerie so successfully that it has now become a kind of microcosm within the macrocosm of the National Museums, which needs its own director. But that's not all: only two successors can come close to replacing someone like Peter-Klaus Schuster, which is why I would like to welcome Udo Kittelmann, the new director of the Nationalgalerie, today.

Udo Kittelmann has had an unusual career. He came into the art world as a kind of lateral entrant and was so incredibly successful that he was entrusted with important tasks and institutions early on. In 2001, his contribution to the Venice Biennale was honoured with the Golden Lion, followed by the Prix des Beaux Arts in 2005. He has added lustre to the Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art, and as a guest curator he has also ignited one "brilliant firework" after another elsewhere in Germany. He is regarded as one of the great connoisseurs of contemporary art, but he is also interested in classical modernism and the 19th century. I think the Nationalgalerie has got a great director, and we wish him all the best too!