Contact Zones – serie

Museumswissenschaft, Museumsanalyse, Museumsgeschichte, Museumstheorien … – neben Bezeichnungen wie Museologie und Museumskunde haben in den letzten Jahren Komposita Verwendung gefunden, die vor allem eines vor Augen führen: das zunehmende wissenschaftliche Interesse an Museen. Bis heute kehrt dabei das Argument stets wieder, dass die Institution maßgeblicher Schauplatz nationaler Identitätsbildung gewesen sei. Der Band rückt hingegen das Museum als Produkt grenzüberschreitender Austausch- und Transferprozesse von circa 75 bis 94 in den Mittelpunkt.

Zirkulation und Nachahmung haben einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die Gestaltung der materiellen Welt. Die Beiträge des Bandes untersuchen, wie technisches Wissen, immaterielle Wünsche und politische Agenden die Produktion und Rezeption der visuellen und materiellen Kultur im Wandel der Zeit und Orte prägten. Sie gehen den Wanderungen von Kulturgütern unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Entstehungskontexte nach. Mit dem Begriff des „rhapsodischen Objektes" werden dabei die vielschichtigen, nicht immer in einem Zusammenhang stehenden Erzählungen der Objekte angesprochen.

A Collector’s Odyssey presents a case of agency and moxie in the face of ruthless Nazi persecution and organized plunder. It reconstructs the untold story of wartime refugee Marie-Anne von/de Goldschmidt-Rothschild and ascertains the contents and trajectory of her art collection. Yet it is less about provenance, or transfers of ownership, than about one collector’s resistance to relinquishing ownership. Beginning with the collection’s inception in Berlin and spanning two World Wars, it traces artworks secretly relocated to Paris, haltingly transported to the U.S., exhibited there, repatriated, then quietly dispersed. Her in-laws’ respective cases of despoliation and exile further highlight what Jewish collectors faced in Nazi Germany. This book restores their stories to memory, countering the Reich's intended erasure.Reconstructs the untold story of the Jewish-born Baroness Marie-Anne von/de Goldschmidt-Rothschild, with a special focus on the fate of her art collection during the Nazi eraTells the saga of a German Jewish family, crushed by systematic persecution and dispossession in the 1930s-1940sReveals the Nazi-era provenance of the (mostly) Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artworks in the collection of Marie-Anne von/de Goldschmidt-Rothschild

Italian art embodies a model of ideal beauty that is deeply rooted in western historical consciousness. In the 1930s, the Italian fascist regime appropriated this model to establish cultural-political relations with other governments. As ambassadors of fascist cultural diplomacy, iconic masterpieces of Italian art then travelled in exhibitions to London, Paris, Belgrade, and the USA. Matilde Cartolari discusses exhibitions as a point of intersection between art historiography and the art market, restoration and heritage protection, nationalism and internationalism. Her analysis sheds light on the development of Italy's fascist cultural policy from the ephemeral triumphalism of the Ethiopian campaign to the unfulfilled dream of the E42 World’s Fair.

This book examines the transcultural and global turn in art research as well as in curatorial and artistic practice. Bringing together contributions from scholars, curators, and artists, the volume approaches transculturation as a critical lens for understanding the complex flows of people, objects, and ideas across the globe. The authors examine how knowledge systems are challenged and reconfigured, how plural identities are negotiated within entangled communities, and how alternative historiographic frameworks take shape beyond western paradigms. Attention to material practices highlights the role of objects and artworks as carriers of memory and affective solidarity. In this way, transculturation emerges as both an analytical framework and a transformative practice shaped by movement across borders.Transdisciplinary approaches to modern and contemporary visual artIncludes interviews, photo essays, artworks, and scholarly articlesBroad outlook from different geographical positions and viewpoints

This book focuses on a rare group of Chinese monumental vases in relation to four generations of leading curators at Dresden Porcelain Collection. Over three centuries, various communities perceived the vases as material evidence of social identity and as a referential device of cultural memory. As curators clarified, demonstrated, and publicized the provenance of the vases, they also transformed global objects into local heritage. The book offers new insights into the production, periodization, and typology of the largest porcelain made in China after the coldest years of the Little Ice Age. Revealing a transcultural history of provenance research, it sheds critical light on the naming and transfers of the renowned Dragoon Vases (Dragonervasen), and shows how Dresden became a center of Chinese art history until 1945. Proposing novel methods to treat provenance research as global art historyRevealing transcultural connections in inventories, archives, manuscripts, and local gazetteersAdvancing ecocritical art history with analyses of energy consumption and energy literacy

This book offers a thorough exploration of the ways in which Gdańsk artists captured nature through art, along with the role of collectors who sought both natural specimens and their artistic representations. Still life painting and scientific illustrations reflected the collectors’ wide-ranging interests from the wonders of the natural world to meticulously arranged displays of objects. The study illustrates how such a culture of collecting influenced artistic production. Gdańsk, a significant Baltic trade center, fostered an environment for exchanging ideas and objects. This book sheds new light on the interconnectedness of artistic creation, collecting practices, and intellectual life in the early modern city and provides a compelling view of a specific time and place where the passion for objects shaped art and society. Art and science in early modern timesHistory of collecting and still-life paintingGdańsk as a trade and cultural center

Ab 933 wurden Tausende von Menschen vom nationalsozialistischen Regime ins Exil getrieben. Für viele deutschsprachige Künstler und Schriftsteller wurde Paris vorübergehend zur Hauptstadt. Die Archive dieser Exilanten wurden zu " displaced objects" , verstreut, geraubt, verschleppt, oft zerstört, aber auch häufig bewahrt. Im Zentrum des Buches steht die Auswertung unbekannten Quellenmaterials, das seit Kriegsende im Moskauer Sonderarchiv/RGVA lagert und das neue Einblicke in die Aktivitäten der deutschsprachigen Emigration der dreißiger Jahre in Paris und Europa erlaubt. Im Rahmen der aktuellen Debatte um deplatzierte Kulturgüter und Restitution versucht der Band damit auch einen transnationalen, interdisziplinären Wissenschaftsdialog zu eröffnen.