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Juli / 2019
EXPOTIME! July-August 2019
The director's intro
The ethical ethnographic museum: Always on the right side, but loosing its visitors
Recently, the directors of the German ethnological museums adopted a joint declaration on questions concerning the restitution of so-called looted art and provenance research. They essentially agree with the paper Erste Eckpunkte zum Umgang mit Sammlungsgut aus kolonialen Kontexten (First Cornerstones for Dealing with Colonial Collections) published by the Ministries of Culture and the Minister of State of the Federal Republic of Germany in March 2019 and stress in particular that museums have in principle always worked on the provenances of their collections and are interested in sharing the cultures of origin. After Macrons declarations on the restitution of African works of art, which were first perceived as revolutionary, corresponding declarations in this country have turned to good account. It is understandable to say that one would like to be on the right side, especially since considerable funds for research have been released by the Federal Cultural Foundation for the next few years.
The seemingly radical change in museum policy then also has consequences for the visitor: no more cultures or even peoples are to be shown, but the emphasis is on the origin of the collection goods.
In other words: the visitor has so far had the wrong expectations when entering a museum of this type. The visitors are judged to be completely mistaken and actually colonialists themselves, entertaining the wrong expectations and asking the wrong questions.
That means a radical change in Germany. Now the right questions are being asked and answered! But there has never been such an ideologically shaped time with a wagging finger, coupled with a quite astonishable aversion to poetry and humour. Never before has the visitor, or to put it correctly in the currently valid German gender spelling: never before have the Besucher_*innen
been given such a senior teacher-like cure in the former ethnological museums as they are given today ‒ by people who always know exactly what is morally impeccable.
Most museums of this kind have changed their names in a short period of time, and there have remained houses in which the visitor gets confused: There are no more concepts such as peoples, cultures, ways of life, diversity, just like classical museum education, which, not a few years ago, was understood as a great achievement in museum life.
The brand of such a museum without a name is therefore fundamentally changed, and the question arises as to which brand it is still? Empathy has been lost for all too hasty political correctness. We stand in cold halls and look around and notice that we are all alone. All former ethnological museums are experiencing a sharp decline in the number of visitors! But there remains the
hope that the crisis that has been conjured up for this type of museum for years (and is therefore kept alive) will be seen as an opportunity. Even with this argument, one is always on the right side.
Yours
Claus Deimel
Claus Deimel was director of the Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen with the Völkerkundemuseen of Leipzig, Dresden and Herrnhut. He is the author of Des Museums neue Kleider. Die Riten im Museum der Menschen (Berlin 2017)
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Titel page: Piglet. Roman, 1st cent. BC ‒1st cent. AD. Bronze, H: 40 cm, W: 45.1 cm. D: 26.7 cm (including ancient base). Found at the east corner of the rectangular peristyle of the Villa dei Papiri, May 17, 1756. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, 4893, VEX.2019.1.22. In the Exhibition Buried by Vesuvius: Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri, Getty Villa, until October 28, 2019. Photo: Giorgio Albano |
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