Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation presents its annual programme and plans for the future
Press release from 04/28/2022
Annual reception 2022 in the James-Simon-Galerie - Parzinger: We have new strategic goals and are facing up to the great challenges of our time
The institutions of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation provide an insight into their annual programme and their plans for the future. As President Hermann Parzinger said on Wednesday evening at the annual reception in the James-Simon-Galerie, new strategic goals and ideas from new minds are part of every reform. "A lot has been set in motion in recent months. Issues such as sustainability and diversity are high priorities, the digital transformation is making our content and offerings accessible to a global audience, and extra-cultural policy activities in the context of cultural preservation and collection responsibility are helping to develop a new relationship with the Global South. Throughout the Foundation, there is a conviction that having various collections under one roof is an added value of the SPK and that it is important to make more of them than before across all disciplines. And above all for visitors; our museums must become even more open and inclusive places for everyone. We have become younger and more female, which can be seen in the new personnel. There is new momentum and more openness to making a difference across all foundations.
This year's annual reception focussed on the "new heads" of the National Museums in Berlin and other SPK institutions. According to the new Director General Achim Bonte, the Berlin State Library will become more inclusive and lively: "From 15 May, the museums will also open on Sundays for the first time, and on 13 July, the Stabi's 'Kulturwerk', a 1,000 square metre exhibition and workshop area, will be inaugurated. With a cafeteria, shop and landscaped courtyards, the main building on Unter den Linden in particular will become even more attractive over the course of the summer and open its arms wide to visitors. Beyond the structural progress, the digitisation of the collections and the improvement of digital services will continue apace. The convenient, intuitive usability of the basic digital services - catalogue, website and information services - is particularly important to me."
In addition to the Mies Bau and the locations in Charlottenburg, the new director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, Klaus Biesenbach, wants to concentrate primarily on the new building of the Museum of the 20th Century at the Kulturforum: "Berlin is building a berlin modern, so to speak. I want an open, barrier-free place to be created for all people who practise social life, debate, inspiration and participation here with and through the arts. It must now become a place of ecological and social practice, a place of we in Berlin." Biesenbach also referred to the historical significance of the new building: "There is still no place in Berlin where the international art history of the 20th century is continuously represented, visible and can be experienced in a museum of modern art. In Berlin in particular, art history is a mirror of history, and we are directly responsible for it."
In future, the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum der Gegenwart - Berlin will "link up more closely with Berlin's cultural institutions and, as a central hub, become an essential part of the city's art scene." This was announced by the new management duo Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath: "We also want to work more with the history of the museum. Inclusivity is a key guiding principle in everything we do. On the one hand, in the direct form of involving different voices, ethnicities and genders; on the other, in thinking of exhibition centres and institutions as inclusive places and creating spaces for encounters. Today, the museum should no longer act as an authority. We want a much more open style of communication with the public and everyone should be able to find themselves at Hamburger Bahnhof."
The new director of the Gemäldegalerie, Dagmar Hirschfelder, promises a strong exhibition programme: "It should further increase the regional, national and international visibility of the Gemäldegalerie. The programme will kick off with the exhibition 'Donatello. Inventor of the Renaissance'. This will be followed in 2023 by a major exhibition on 'Hugo van der Goes', which will present almost the entire oeuvre of the innovative Flemish painter for the first time." Overarching exhibitions on socially relevant themes will also be realised. Many of the Old Masters' paintings revolve around existential issues - such as identity, gender, the body, nature and violence. In future, the focus will not only be on researching the collection, but also on communicating it. This also includes the Gemäldegalerie receiving an innovative and sustainable lighting system by autumn 2023.
The new director of the Ethnological Museum, Tina Brüderlin, is looking forward to the opening of the so-called "Ostspange" of the Humboldt Forum this autumn. The second part of the collection presentation on Africa, the exhibition on North, Central and South America and the Asia rooms of the Ethnological Museum will then open. "One of the strengths of the Ethnological Museum is its numerous networks. Collaboration with a wide variety of partners will continue to be a priority, for example with representatives from heritage societies, partner museums and institutions worldwide, but of course also with partners here in Berlin: in the Humboldt Forum, but also within the National Museums in Berlin and the SPK, for example. It is crucial for us to make this collaborative work and the resulting questions, perspectives and approaches to the collections visible, tangible and tangible for visitors."
The State Institute for Music Research with the Musical Instrument Museum is to develop into a "sounding entrance to the Kulturforum" according to the new director Rebecca Wolf: "I want us to be a place of research and mediation, but also to network with our neighbours at the Kulturforum. Especially with the Philharmonie, with whom we have been offering joint family tours in both theatres since March and will continue to do so until June, for example, which have been very well received. For the Berlin-wide E.T.A. Hoffmann Year 2022, there will be a spotlight exhibition on the musical instruments that are important in Hoffmann's writings, based on the collection of the Musical Instrument Museum. Another topic will be Hoffmann's fascination with musical automatons." The work at the SIM will focus even more clearly on research into musical perception. To this end, the "Sound & Vision Experience Lab" is currently being finalised, funded by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Board of Trustees and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
According to Director Barbara Göbel, the Ibero-American Institute should continue to be a stable, trusting and innovative hub for academic and cultural relations between Germany and Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal in the future: "It should be an open place that enables a change of perspective, promotes diversity of knowledge and creates connections despite all differences and inequalities. Building on this, the IAI will continue to engage in content-related cooperation with other SPK institutions in the future, be it within the framework of the Dahlem Research Campus or the Cultural Forum. However, this complementarity between the specific profile of the IAI and the SPK network will become even more dynamic in the future."
Director UIrike Höroldt sees the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage on the right track. With a professional range of content and technology and good user conditions, the Dahlem centre is a popular archive for both academics and the general public with free access to the holdings. The digital offering is being continuously expanded. "In the cosmos of the Foundation, the GStA PK itself is also actively involved as a scientific and research institution. As a research infrastructure institution, it is a welcome partner for numerous projects and also acquires third-party funding for collection-related projects. Through its networking with universities and historical commissions, academies and other research institutions, it is part of the German academic landscape. Within the SPK, the GStA is in charge of the e-file project," says Ulrike Höroldt. In addition to the further expansion of digital services, the GStA PK will continue to focus its efforts on improving the storage situation, which has been unsatisfactory for decades.