Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden to Celebrate 450 Years of Collecting

Written by Peter Winegarten Sunday, 07 March 2010 21:02

Dresden, Germany - In 2010 the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden will be celebrating the past and the future of 450 years of collecting art with a lavish anniversary exhibition. It will include historical sources showing how August I, Elector of Saxony founded the royal Kunstkammer (literally “art chamber”) in the attic of the Residenzschloss in 1560. In doing so he laid the foundations for one of the oldest and most important collections in Europe, which have ultimately developed into many of the museums of today’s Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. The works they display testify to the diverse interests and far-reaching vision of the Saxon rulers. To this day, the museums are committed to preserving traditions, developing new visions and helping to shape the future. On exhibition 18 April through 7 November, 2010.

The early Kunstkammer combined hand-crafted and scientific items with works of fine art. This broad spectrum is reflected in the anniversary exhibition, which includes works from the museums’ own collections such as paintings, sculptures, drawings, historical weapons and armour, clothing, medals, porcelain, jewellery and scientific instruments and tools. Other Dresden-based collections that used to belong to the royal collections, such as the Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library), the Staatliche Naturhistorische Sammlungen (State Natural History Collections) and the Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen (State Ethnographic Collections) have also provided key display pieces.

Outstanding items on loan from museums elsewhere in Germany and the world complete the exhibition and reflect the strong relationships that have existed between Dresden and other courts and countries from the 16th century to the present day. Some of these loan items have not been displayed in Dresden for centuries.

The first recorded collection rooms of the Kunstkammer were located in the Residenzschloss of the Dresden court. The spatial design of the exhibition on the second and third floors of the palace makes reference to this, although nothing remains of the original interior of these rooms. Rather than focusing on a chronology, the exhibition aims to generate unusual comparisons, new points of view and associations between the different temporal planes. Five themes – creation, longing, curiosity, confrontation, appeal – highlight the main considerations and impulses associated with the presentation of these works, and guide visitors through the exhibition.

The act of collecting is depicted as a way of appropriating the world and of displaying social status. In early modern times, it expressed an attempt to understand the universe. The microcosm of a collection represented the diversity of creation and, as a collector, the royal owner believed himself to be part of God’s salvation plan. With the advent of modern science in the late 18th century, attention turned to recording and organizing collected items.

The exhibition will include initial results from “Daphne”, the recently launched large-scale inventory project that aims to record every item belonging to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

The exhibition also addresses events in recent German history and their impact on the museums. Some outstanding examples of the works that the National Socialists classed as “degenerate art” and removed from the collections will be returning to Dresden for the duration of the exhibition. For the first time, the exhibition reveals the influence and significance of Hans Posse, director of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) from 1910 to 1942, as a dedicated collector of contemporary art on the one hand and Hitler’s commissioner for the “Führer Museum” in Linz on the other hand.

The exhibition also looks at a divided Germany: the GDR was characterised by a balancing act between conformity and self-assertion, but dedicated museum directors, who made the most of every creative leeway even at times when cultural policy was at its most restrictive, were among those to leave a lasting mark on the era.

The anniversary exhibition unravels the history of collecting and the transformation of the Kunstkammer into a public museum, a “sanctuary of art”. It shows how the Dresden collections are becoming increasingly famous as a result of modern tourism, and how their communication strategies tap into the potential of new media – from early descriptions in books and the first photographs in the 19th century, to modern film and the visual formats offered by today’s media. It spans different centuries, includes a huge variety of exhibits and sheds light on the major developments in the history of collection and presentation. Thus, when looking back over a 450-year history that was, as the exhibition shows, dynamic, innovative and visionary, the future also invariably shines through -  state of the art since 1560

Visit the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden at: http://www.skd-dresden.de/de/index.html

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