Please note: Due to construction work in the Kleihueshalle, the exhibition “Joseph Beuys: Works from the Nationalgalerie Collection” will remain temporarily closed from Tuesday, 8 October, through Sunday, 20 October 2024. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
The Nationalgalerie is currently reassessing its holdings with the aim of seeing them from a global perspective. The research and exhibition project has been funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, as a part of the initiative ‘Global Museum’.
Characterized by historical and political ruptures, the collection is currently Western-oriented, expanded mainly by a marked focus on North America, and the merging of East and West German post-war art collections. What might the collection include today, had a global understanding characterized its concept of art and consequently also its genesis? What challenges would such a change in perspective – as motivated by the heightened interconnectedness of our increasingly globalized world – bring to a museum, today and in the future?
As part of the “Global Museum” programme of the Federal Cultural Foundation, several German art museums have conducted a critical examination of their collections, and by extension, also the Western canon of modern art. As the MMK in Frankfurt, the Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Kunstsammlung NRW in Düsseldorf conclude their projects, this conference takes stock of the progress achieved thus far:
Date: September 30 to October 1, 2019, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Historische Halle
A conference by Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the German Federal Cultural Foundation; with kind support by Freunde der Nationalgalerie e.V.
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The conference and performance program Embodied Histories - Temporal Communities. Southeast Asian and Western Approaches to Narratives and Performance Art at Hamburger Bahnhof aims to open up new perspectives on narrativizations of history, narratives and their embodiment in performative arts and practices in Southeast Asia.
The combination of lecture and performance programme reflects the conference's concern to explore the possibilities of how curatorial, institutional and academic practices can learn from artistic practices. With its focus on embodied histories and entangled communities, the conference is part of a polyphonic curatorial collaboration. In 2017, this collaboration was initiated by the Goethe-Institut during the research for the exhibition Hello World. Revising a Collection (Hamburger Bahnhof, 2018), and is an ongoing research and exhibition project between the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok, the MAIIAM in Chiang Mai, the Galerie Nasional in Jakarta and the Singapore Art Museum. In 2021 and 2021 a series of exhibitions will be held in Thailand, Indonesia and Germany under the same title.
Date: 13 to 14 June 2019
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„Hello World. Revising a Collection“ is a critical inquiry into the Nationalgalerie Collection and its predominantly Western focus:
With these questions as starting points, the exhibition unfolds in 13 thematic chapters as a many-voiced collaboration of internal and external curators, encompassing the whole exhibition space of the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. Works and groups of works from the collection function as starting points for thematic explorations of the complex web of international and trans-cultural ties, from 1900 to the present. A curatorial team is in the process of creating a draft for a museum that displays the historical, cultural, and political complexity of its holdings.
Date: 28 April to 26 August 2018
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At the invitation of Goethe Institute Jakarta curators, museum directors and artists from Southeast Asia and Germany are invited to Berlin to share their experience, views and different perspectives concerning exhibition practices in transition in Southeast Asia within three panels and a following panel discussion. Between 4 and 6 pm the programme is accompanied by the performance “Sweet Dreams Sweet“ by the Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo.
The conference is a cooperation between the Goethe Institut and the Nationalgalerie — Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and takes place on the occasion of the exhibition "Hello World. Revising a collection“ at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.
Date: Wednesday, 25. April 2018, 4 to 9 p.m.
Free admission.
The weekend of oceanic performances, installations and panels, presented by the TBA21–Academy in association with the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin is prologue of the the research and exhibition project of the Nationalgalerie, which is part of the ‘Museum Global’ initiative.
The title is based on a Polynesian creation myth, according to which the archipelagos’ islands were fished out of the sea. Within 36 hours, i.e. three tide cycles, the project comprises a diverse programme of oceanic activities in the historic hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.
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On 2 and 3 December 2016, the conference ‘The Idea of the Global Museum’ took place at the Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Over the course of two days, the conference participants contributed their specific knowledge and viewpoints:
In the face of a limited, still predominant canon of art, the development of alternative narratives is one of the main tasks of the museum. The conference takes this status quo as the starting point for a discussion of museum programmes - especially those of museums of modern and contemporary art - that rethink collection, research, exhibition and audience from a global perspective. In current discourse, such endeavours are associated with buzzwords such as inclusion and diversity, but also universalism and imperialism. These different values flow into ‘The idea of the global museum’: a title that stands as an acronym for the discussion of different approaches that museums are pursuing today and could pursue in the future.
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