Detail page - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Programme:

Guided tours #Searching for traces - A provenance walk

Five guided provenance walks on different routes will be offered on 9 April. They will lead mainly along Unter den Linden, but also along Wilhelmstraße, and provide insights into the work of provenance researchers in the individual cultural institutions. At the same time, various stations in today's Berlin cityscape show the still visible traces of colonial heritage and Nazi rule as well as the fates of persecuted people and institutions.

The Provenance Walks were conceived as a joint programme of the Akademie der Künste, the Berlinische Galerie, the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the Ethnologisches Museum der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Stiftung Topographie des Terrors, the University Library of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin and the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin.

When: 9 April 2025, 10.00, 12.00, 14.00, 15.00 and 17.00 (duration: 60 to 120 minutes depending on the tour)
Where: For meeting points and details of the routes, please refer to the booking website
Who: Professional city guides and provenance researchers from the institutions

Limited number of participants. Participation is free, registration is required.

Registration 10 a.m.: https://pretix.eu/StaatsbibliothekZuBerlin/spuren10/
Registration 12 p.m.: https://pretix.eu/StaatsbibliothekZuBerlin/spuren12/
Registration 2 p.m.: https://pretix.eu/StaatsbibliothekZuBerlin/spuren14/
Registration 3 p.m.: https://pretix.eu/StaatsbibliothekZuBerlin/spuren15/
Registration 5 p.m.: https://pretix.eu/StaatsbibliothekZuBerlin/spuren17/

Further information at: https://blog.sbb.berlin/termin/tag-der-provenienzforschung-2025-spurensuche/

Alte Nationalgalerie: TracesSearch. Tandem tour with curator & provenance researcher through the permanent exhibition

How did the painting come to the museum? Who sold the sculpture to the museum, and who was the art dealer or collector? The paths of art into the museum are often convoluted and sometimes bizarre, the traces are often blurred and must first be uncovered. Curators and provenance researchers work closely together in this process.

Join curator Dr Yvette Deseyve and provenance researcher Dr Petra Winter on a tour of the museum and discover the stories "behind the artworks".

When: 9 April 2025, 16:30 (duration: approx. 60 minutes)
Where: Alte Nationalgalerie
Who: Yvette Deseyve and Petra Winter

Registration: Participation fee 6 € plus admission. Limited number of participants. Online booking is required for participation. https://shop.smb.museum/#/product/event/110666?date=2025-04-09&date_id=283754&lang=de

Kupferstichkabinett: The Blue Rider cosmos on Provenance Research Day. Tandem tour of the exhibition with curator & provenance researcher

How did the Blue Rider's drawings and prints end up in the Kupferstichkabinett? Who were the dealers and collectors? Were the artists affected by National Socialism and the "Degenerate Art" campaign? How was the collection rebuilt after 1945 in East and West Berlin? What challenges does provenance research on works on paper face? What do the backs of paintings tell us about the origin of the art and how are they exhibited? Curator Dr Andreas Schalhorn explores these and other questions on the basis of selected works in the exhibition, providing an exciting insight into the history of the collection of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett. He will be joined in conversation by Dr Sven Haase, provenance researcher for European art at the Central Archive of the National Museums.

When: 9 April 2024, 16:00 (duration: approx. 60 minutes)
Where: Kupferstichkabinett
Who: Andreas Schalhorn and Sven Haase

Registration: Participation fee € 6 plus admission. Limited number of participants. Online booking is required for participation.

https://shop.smb.museum/#/product/event/110667?date=2025-04-09&date_id=283755&lang=de

Museum of European Cultures: Insight into two current projects on provenance research

To mark Provenance Research Day, the Museum of European Cultures is presenting two current research projects: In a guided tour of the depot, Matthias Thaden will report on his research into collection items from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Afterwards, the Duojárat (Sámi artisans) Elle Valkeapää, Heini Wesslin, Lova Lundberg and Ellen Berit Dalbakk will discuss their experiences in the research project on the Sámi collection at the MEK. The discussion in the Áimmuin project room will be moderated by Eeva-Kristiina Nylander. The following day there will also be a dialogue-based guided tour of Áimmuin.

When: 9 April 2025, 14.30-15.30 (depot tour), 16.00-18.00 (discussion round), 10.4.2025, 15.00-17.00 (dialogue tour in Áimmuin)
Where: Museum of European Cultures, meeting point in the foyer.
Who: Matthias Thaden, Elle Valkeapää, Heini Wesslin, Lova Lundberg, Ellen Berit Dalbakk, Eeva-Kristiina Nylander

Registration: Limited number of participants. The events are included in the museum admission.

Registration for the depot tour: https://www.smb.museum/veranstaltungen/detail/dinge-aus-dem-sued-oestlichen-europa-in-der-sammlung-des-mek-2025-04-09-143000-149875/
Registration for the discussion round: https://www.smb.museum/veranstaltungen/detail/ueber-die-arbeit-mit-der-samischen-sammlung-am-mek-und-die-vielen-bedeutungen-des-duodji-der-vorfahrinnen-2025-04-09-160000-149876/
Registration for the dialogue tour in Áimmuin: https://www.smb.museum/museen-einrichtungen/museum-europaeischer-kulturen/veranstaltungen/detail/die-musealisierung-der-geliebten-duodji-durchbrechen-2025-04-10-150000-149880/

Gemäldegalerie: Blog post on the painting The Lute Player by Jan van Hemessen and the Brunswick Monogrammist

It is only in recent years that The Lute Player by Jan van Hemessen and the Brunswick Monogramist can be viewed in its entirety again. Once cut into two panels, the two parts were acquired separately in the post-war period and reassembled decades later in the Gemäldegalerie. The blog post outlines the known history of the painting, which poses a particular challenge not only for provenance research.

When: from 9 April 2025
Where: Museum and the City, the blog of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Who: Franziska May

Registration: no registration required

Humboldt Forum: Hidden Paths and Emerging Networks. Provenance research between memory and responsibility - project presentation and discourse

Provenance research is more than simply tracing object biographies. It scrutinises colonial entanglements, uncovers mechanisms of translocation and poses urgent questions about our responsibility in dealing with cultural assets. What new insights emerge when institutions, academics and affected communities around the world enter into dialogue? This event offers a platform to explore these questions in depth and discuss how innovative research approaches are changing the museum landscape in the long term.

The focus is on three international research projects funded by the Franco-German Provenance Research Fund on cultural objects from sub-Saharan Africa at the Centre Marc Bloch:

- PROBAMA - A look at the acquisition practices of German and French research missions in present-day Mali (1880-1914).

- ReMatriation - The symbolic reconnection of objects to their communities of origin, with a special focus on gender-specific aspects.

- ProHumStra - An investigation into the provenance of human remains and their colonial entanglements in German-French border regions.

A joint programme of the Humboldt Forum and the Franco-German Provenance Research Fund on cultural objects from sub-Saharan Africa at the Centre Marc Bloch, in cooperation with the Ethnological Museum, the Museum of Asian Art and the Central Archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

When: 9 April 2025, 16.30-18.30
Where: Humboldt Forum, Mechanical Arena in the foyer
Who: Hamady Bocoum (Senegalese archaeologist and former director of the Museum of Black Civilisations, Dakar), Sophia Bokop (Ethnologisches Museum - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Kristin Weber-Sinn, Ohiniko Toffa, Ilja Labischinski and Christine Howald (Zentralarchiv - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz)

Registration: The event is free of charge and will be held in German, French and English with simultaneous translation and broadcast via livestream. Registration is not required.

Access data for the livestream:

us06web.zoom.us/j/87980993346
Meeting ID: 879 8099 3346
Identification code: yL21NX

Humboldt Forum: Restitution: A long story? A tour of the exhibition

Provenance research deals intensively with the appropriation and acquisition contexts of museum collections. But what are the legal and ethical bases for their restitution today, and how have these developed historically?

To mark the 7th International Day of Provenance Research, a tour of the exhibitions at the Ethnological Museum in the Humboldt Forum will shed light on the development of the framework conditions for restitution and the associated challenges, potentials and unanswered questions. Selected cases from the Ethnological Museum will be used to illustrate the diversity of restitution processes.

When: 10 April 2025, 17:00 - 18:00
Where: Ethological Museum and Museum of Asian Art on the 2nd floor of the Humboldt Forum
Who: Julia von Sigsfeld

Registration: Limited number of participants. Participation is free of charge. Further information at: https://www.humboldtforum.org/de/programm/termin/fuehrung/restitution-eine-lange-geschichte-143366/?event_date=20250410%2017%3A00

Humboldt Forum: power II relationships. Discussion round on provenance research at the Ethnological Museum

Diplomatic gifts, purchases, war campaigns and situations of highly unequal power relations: The collections of the Ethnological Museum came to Berlin in many different ways. The team of provenance researchers invites you to talk about the complex changes of ownership and appropriation contexts on the basis of selected exhibits. As part of the exhibition tour, they will provide insights into the history of the museums and collections, their working methods and methods as well as current cooperation projects that deal with collection histories and colonial heritage as part of international cooperation.

When: 11 April 2025, 17:00 - 18:00
Where: Ethological Museum and Museum of Asian Art on the 2nd floor of the Humboldt Forum
Who: Sophia Bokop

Registration: Limited number of participants. Participation is free of charge. Further information at: https://www.humboldtforum.org/de/programm/termin/fuehrung/macht-beziehungen-126511/

Provenance research on Bluesky

If you would like to keep up to date with provenance research at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin on 9 April 2025 on Provenance Research Day and beyond, follow the provenance research team's Bluesky account: Postcolonial Provenance Research @ppr-smb.bsky.social

Podcast

Further insights into collection-based research, museum work and current international collaboration projects on the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst can be found, for example, in the new podcast "Against Habit - New Forms of Collaboration ". https://www.smb.museum/online-angebote/detail/gegen-die-gewohnheit-neue-formen-der-zusammenarbeit/

Provenance Research Day

The Provenance Research Day is an initiative of the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V.(https://www.arbeitskreis-provenienzforschung.org/), which brings together over 500 academics and experts worldwide who are dedicated to researching the provenance of cultural assets. Provenance Research Day will be accompanied on the working group's channels in the social networks Mastodon(https://mastodon.social/@akpf) and Bluesky(https://bsky.app/profile/akpf.bsky.social).