Textile Museum Krefeld
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Exhibition on the “History of Things” starts
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Annette Schieck, director of the German Textile Museum, in the exhibition
Photo: City of Krefeld
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Krefeld Where does the art come from? Who did it belong to before? What’s the story behind it? These are questions of provenance research around which an exhibition of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe revolves.
(ped) Where does the art that slumbers in the museum depots or other collections come from? The subject is explosive – at least since the Gurlitt case. A traveling exhibition of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (LWL), which can be seen on Sunday, October 24th, in the German Textile Museum, revolves around the exploration of the origins of art, the so-called provenance research.
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In “History of Things”, objects in the Münster collections in North Rhine-Westphalia show the breadth of this field of research. The Gurlitt case, bronzes from the former Kingdom of Benin or the Elgin Marbles from the Acropolis – this list shows the breadth of current provenance research. It is not always about expropriations from the property of Jewish owners by the National Socialists. Colonial times and injustice in the GDR are also important issues.
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“It is true that museums and other institutions, such as libraries and archives, are now increasingly promoting research into important collection items. Nevertheless, awareness is only slowly emerging that works of art, objects of value or everyday objects acquired today could be looted property, ”says exhibition curator Verena Burhenne from the LWL Museum Office for Westphalia. This applies not only to public institutions, but also to associations and private individuals. While exhibitions on the subject of provenance research usually only focus on a collection area, a collector or a museum, the LWL exhibition is devoted to the entire subject area for the first time in Germany. The central question: where does the object come from? With 50 items on loan, the exhibition cannot always provide answers. Rather, the objects invite you to deal with the topic and to consider morality and law. “With this exhibition we want to encourage visitors to deal with this topic, whether in their own favorite museum or at home,” said Burhenne. Especially when it comes to the ‘great art’, it is easy to overlook the fact that a persecution-related withdrawal is also possible here.
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Instead of an opening, a film with backgrounds to the exhibition will be released on Sunday, October 24th at 11 a.m.
www.deutschestextilmuseum.de
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