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

The students collect at the entrance to The Desire for Freedom at 10 a.m. Theatre director Thorsten Schlenger, standing at the front, doesn’t wait long with his questions: ‘What does freedom actually mean? What about desire?’ 

With this last blog entry for 2012 (and no, we don’t believe that the world is going to end on 21 December.), we would like first and foremost to thank you all: our visitors, readers, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, journalists, and bloggers for your visits, comments, conversations, stimulating ideas, suggestions for improvement, and your (often justified) criticism. 

Part of our exhibition was supposed be displayed at the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo from May to July 2014. An international seminar, The Realities of Politics, was planned for the same period. Both events had to be cancelled because the Art Gallery was forced to close. Prior to the closure, its employees had been struggling for almost a year to keep the museum functioning without pay or other financial means. The National Museum and six other institutions were also forced to close in early October 2012. The museum employees nailed thick wooden boards across the entry door, marked with the words, ‘Closed’—after 124 years. Our co-curator Henry Meyric Hughes explains the reasons, which are as tragic as they are political, in his recounting of the trip to Sarajevo. 

Kristian and I meet for our interview in a room in the administration building that stands out for its vaulted ceiling. Its wood panelling and single large table are supplemented by a wonderful view of the Berlin Cathedral. Its quiet is much better suited to interviews than our noisy project office. After our exciting talk, I actually feel that I have an understanding of what until then had been the least accessible image in the exhibition: Emil Schumacher’s Eruption.  

Last week we introduced our online exhibition catalogue (which brought in several interesting comments: Dear Mr. Müller, we will report on how things have been going); this week we present the exhibition poster, specifically its imagery.

What kind of gloves are seen on the poster?