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Besondere Exponate
State of the Art since 1560. The Exhibition
April 18 to November 7, 2010
Multifaceted, surprising and concentrated – that is how the exhibition commemorating the 450th anniversary of the founding of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden presents itself.
Covering 1,800 square meters of ground space (over 19,000 square feet) in seven rooms, it offers a rarely seen concentration of art. The exhibition draws from the huge reservoir of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden’s artistic treasures: Cranach’s Adam und Eva, filigree treasures from the Grünes Gewölbe, a Dragoon vase, but also and automated crab from the 16th century or shadow play puppets from the distant isle of Java. This is further enriched with German and international loans from such famous museums as the Louvre in Paris or the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Thanks to the loan from the Munich Staatsgemäldesammlungen, “Maria als Schmerzensmutter” has been put together with Dresden’s “Sieben Schmerzen der Maria”, thus enabling us to reconstruct an altarpiece by Albrecht Dürer after 420 years of separation. There are also important works of classic modern art, once decried as “degenerate art”, on loan to the exhibition, including paintings by Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde.
Video about the exhibition (in German)
Video zur Ausstellung "Zukunft seit 1560. Die Ausstellung"
The exhibition is more than just a fast ride through the history of the collection. For the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the retrospective is also an outlook on the future. The museum has successfully made the transition from an art chamber to a civil museum and today is faced with new challenges. The 450 years of art collection, as the concept of the curator Dr. Karin Kolb suggests, are accompanied by the timeless impulses of desire and the thirst for knowledge and driven forward by a concept of the future. The spacious and generously proportioned rooms with their inimical patina of preserved architectural decoration and blackened walls stand in contrast to the business-like exhibition architecture with its art islands in the middle of the rooms. Large and numerous windows provide views of the Semperoper, Zwinger and Hofkirche.
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Exhibition Architecture
The former State Rooms of the Residenzschloss have not been treated as merely a shell for the exhibition, but have been incorporated as a primary exhibit. The clearly visible chronological layers revealed by their cracked and damaged surfaces are a particular feature. Once the exhibition is over, reconstruction of these rooms is to begin. The designers of hg merz architekten museumsgestalter have ensured that the exhibition architecture does not encroach on the fabric of the building, but makes use of the space without competing with it. The walls of the exhibition space remain untouched; the platforms for the five major themes appear to float like islands grouped around its central areas, an effect accentuated by the graphic design of the flooring.
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New media
Stuttgart company jangled nerves has created the media concept for an exhibition which spans five centuries. This broad narrative sweep is accompanied by a media guide and digital wall projections. The basic concept: visitors will be prompted by their interest in the exhibits to explore the collection further in an intuitive manner. This means that text-based information panels in the exhibition space can be almost completely dispensed with – information and inspiration, and consequently a guiding thread, are provided by this innovative multimedia guide and by the surrounding space itself, where actual exhibits and virtual projections co-exist in complementary combination. The guide is available to visitors in a choice of five languages (German, English, Polish, Russian, or Czech). Translation, sound production and programming have been carried out by Acoustiguide of Berlin.
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Youth Congress
Before the anniversary exhibition opens, an International Youth Congress is to take place in the Residenzschloss on 14 and 15 April. Through its renowned partner institutions, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden have invited young people of 14 to 20 years of age to take part in this event. Around 30 young people from eight nations are expected to take part: young delegates will come to Dresden from China, Russia, France, Poland, the Czech Republic and Spain, among others, to debate with school students from Dresden the roles that cultural and media institutions will potentially play in the lives of future generations, and the international challenges which these institutions will have to address.