On the fifth path, we take a look at women artists and their (lacking) presence in the collections of the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst in the Bode-Museum.

Even today, women artists continue to be heavily underrepresented in museums. And yet, research from right around the world has long made it abundantly clear that women – despite adverse conditions – have always been active as artists, with some of them creating important oeuvres. However, there continues to be a lack of research in this field that would provide the data that would allow us to even identify their names and works.

Spot the Woman!

This is particularly true of the Bode-Museum. In both the Skultpurensammlung and the Museum für Byzantische Kunst, there is not a single work that can be ascribed to a concrete female artist. However, by no means does this imply that we know for sure that no women participated in the production of the artworks in these collections. In light of this, the fifth tour calls on the imagination of our audience: wander through our museum, and when you see labels such as “unknown artist” or “workshop” (which are not at all uncommon), just entertain the idea that women artists might have been the creators behind these works.