Deutsches Historisches Museum - Verf�hrung Freiheit. Kunst in Europa seit 1945 - Blog

With the Tuesday Question we want to introduce a blog category dedicated to the questions most frequently asked by visitors. We hear about these questions from the security staff in the exhibition and the guest book. We also enjoy the contact via Facebook or Twitter (#D4freedom) very much.

Last weekend we had a celebration at the museum and the question that our curator Monika Flacke heard most frequently was:

How are the objects chosen for an exhibition?  

Transcription:

‘Ulrike Schmiegelt and I first made our choices for Germany because we were well informed about the fine arts here. But we needed on-site research associates for countries such as Azerbaijan or the Ukraine and Russia. We asked our colleagues there to put together a list, and then we went there and discussed the selections with them. We revised the list while we were there and then signed up authors to write about the works. You could call that the hands-on approach.

But of course you need a clear idea of what your objective is what you want to exhibit. This didn’t take long once the concept had been completed. And we were then able to filter out objects very quickly.

In any case, it wasn’t difficult for us to develop a selection once we had the twelve chapters clearly in mind. We also didn’t really have a problem between East and West. After all, we had visited all of these countries and had chosen works. In the end, we were fortunate to discover that there was good balance between West, East, South, and North. We were lucky there. It didn’t take a huge amount of effort.

The real effort lay in the concept. Until you know where you want to go, and how the rooms should look, you can’t decide anything at all. All decisions require a basis and that can only come from the concept; otherwise you’re lost.

We had approximately one million images, so we needed to have people on site who knew the local scene. But we had to stay focused on our concept during the discussions with our contacts there, and to be open with our opinions and ideas about the exhibition’s objectives. Because, in the end there are perhaps one hundred works to chose from, and then you will have to filter out ninety of those, too.

Question: Was there a work that was unexpectedly added, because you perhaps saw it a museum and thought, ‘I knew nothing about this before, but we definitely have to include it in the exhibition'?

‘That happened two or three times. This was true for the Fangor, for example. I saw the picture in a museum and thought, “This is just the right picture.” This doesn’t happen very often—a picture that depicts the fragility of utopia, and does it in the painting style of social realism.

It was an amazing picture then and it is an amazing picture now, and I am glad that it in the exhibition. Actually, there were many surprises regarding Eastern Europe. This confirmed our idea that we would find works that are perhaps unknown in the West, but which measure up in all respects. But this work was ignored in the West, because for a long time there was no or very little information about it.’