Berlin’s Museum Controversies (LV / Seminar)

Berlin’s Museum Controversies

SE

Dr. Andrea Meyer, Prof. Dr. Aya Soika (Bard College Berlin)

BA

Kuwi 3, 5, 7, Freie Wahl

Freitags 12-17:30

Wir werden immer in den Museen sein. Für den ersten Termin am Freitag, 03.11.2023, 12:00 – 14:00 ist die Einführung im Archäologischen Zentrum vorgesehen.

Berlin has a long history as a museum center, possessing collections to rival Paris and London. Recently, the institution of the museum – quintessentially a 19th century invention – has been the subject of radical transformation, resulting in changing modes of display and communication and a critical revision of existing notions of its public function. This class looks at some of the crucial themes within the current curatorial discourse, taking the recent transformations in Berlin’s museumscape and the discussions that have been sparked by them as its point of departure. To begin with we will explore the Humboldt Forum, a national prestige project that had become the subject of heated debate long before its recent opening. The fact that the building hosts Berlin’s colonial ethnographic collections whilst its newly built façade copies the former Prussian City Palace – once the seat of Germany’s last emperor and demolished in the early 1950s – allows to take a closer look at the complex relationship between museum space and its collections. We will also pay attention to the ongoing developments on Museum Island and at Kulturforum near Potsdamer Platz. Whereas Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie was re-opened in 2021, a new building for the State Museums’ comprehensive twentieth-century collection by Herzog & de Meuron architects is underway. However, we will also take the changes at the supposed periphery of the city into consideration, in Dahlem for example, where both the Brücke-Museum and the Kunsthaus Dahlem have effectively revised traditional exhibition and outreach programming. Pursuing these investigations will give us a unique insight into the decision-making processes, choices, and public discourse surrounding the modern display and understanding of art.

Please note: The seminar takes place in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Aya Soika from Bard College Berlin. Course language is English. Since the lecture times of Bard College and TU are different, the course must be held as a block course. It starts Friday, November 3rd and ends December 15th. The course is planned as an excursion seminar: the block sessions take place at the respective museum locations.

Detailed information on the schedule will be provided before the term starts.

The number of participants from TU is limited to 8. Registration is necessary.