Museum of Byzantine Art at the Bode-Museum

The Museum of Byzantine Art owns a first-class collection of art works and utility objects from late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. It is the only one of its kind within Germany. The focus of the collection is on art of the Western Roman and Byzantine Empires dating from the third to the fifteenth century. Additionally, there are a large number of post-Byzantine icons and small art works.

Nearly all of the works of art originate from the ancient mediterranean region, from Rome and Italy, from Istanbul (the Byzantine Constantinople) and Turkey, from Greece and the Balkan countries, from Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, North Africa, the Near Eastern and Russian countries - according to expansion of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and the states which continued the inheritance of the Byzantine culture.

Out of this broad spectrum, the Berlin collection has shaped its distinctive profile, defined by four main aspects: Roman sarcophagi and sarcophagi fragments from Late Antiquity offer a panorama of Early Christian iconography in the capital of the Western Roman Empire. The rich holdings of figurative and ornamental sculpture from the Eastern Roman Empire allow insight into the stylistic diversity and developments within this genre; no collection other than the archaeological museum in Istanbul is on par with this part of the Berlin collection. Precious ivory carvings and mosaic icons document the high technical and artistic standard of Byzantine court art. Every-day objects and Christian religious items from Egypt give an idea of daily life and the equipment of liturgical procedures. Among these are excavated objects made of organic material such as wood or fabric which owe their preservation to Egypt's hot and dry desert climate.

Presented by:
Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art

National Gallery in the Old National Gallery

The Alte Nationalgalerie is regarded as a comprehensive collection of art of the era between the French Revolution and the First World War, between Classicism and Secessions. The harmonious relationship between the museum building and its collection is unique: designed under the auspices of Heinrich Strack according to plans by August Stüler, the gallery was built in the years 1867 to 1876: the collection it houses today, one of the most beautiful of its kind, originates from the same century. Hence, a tour through the museum offers a profound insight into the art of the 19th century.

Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art

The Museum of Byzantine Art owns a first-class collection of art works and utility objects from late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. It is the only one of its kind within Germany. The focus of the collection is on art of the Western Roman and Byzantine Empires dating from the third to the fifteenth century. Additionally, there are a large number of post-Byzantine icons and small art works.

Music Ethnology

Since November 2007, the Department of Music Ethnology of the Ethnological Museum is being presented in a newly designed exhibition.

The phonogram archive comprises more than 16,000 original recordings and around 2,000 shellac records from all kinds of regions of the world.

Collection of South, Southeast and Central Asian Art

The Collection of South, Southeast and Central Asian Art houses one of the most important collections worldwide of art from the Indo-Asian cultural area, from the 4th millenium BC to the present. This extensive geographic region includes, next to India, the regions Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Autonomous Regions Tibet and Xinjiang of the People's Republic of China, the Southeast Asian countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, as well as the Indonesian Islands.

The Collection

The formative, and almost exclusive, influence on Indian art is religion. The three main religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism - are represented in the Collection of South, Southeast and Central Asian Art in the form of outstanding stone sculptures and reliefs, bronze works and terracotta pieces. With regard to the rich iconography of images of deities, the museum's collection may well be the most sophisticated outside of India. The oldest art works it contains come from Buddhist and Hindu religious buildings of the first centuries AC. The collection's Jain art and the largest part of its Hindu sculpture, on the other hand, originate from temples of the classic period or the middle ages, through to around the 13th century. As part of the redesign of the exhibition space in the year 2000, architectural features of the round stupa and the rectangular temple - the two central units of Indian religious architecture - were integrated into the layout.

As from the 12th century, Islam joined the other main religions in India. During the period of Islamic rule in India, Indian craft prospered. Metal work, ceramics, wood carvings, ivory and jade works, as well as precious textiles bear testimony to this heyday. Gorgeously coloured miniatures from the Mughal period round off the exhibition. Within the field of book art, the museum distinguishes itself through its comprehensive collection of paintings from all four of India's main religions.

The art of the Himalayan countries of Nepal and Tibet is represented by fabric painting (so-called Thangkas), wood sculptures and bronzes. The demon-like gods of protection of the 18th century are characteristic of late Tantric Buddhism.

The Southeast Asian collection includes stone and bronze figures, glazed clay reliefs, as well as grave finds from prehistoric times (3rd to 1st millenium BC), ceramic vessels, and bronze or glass jewellery.

The heart of the collection, and at the same time the architectural focus of the exhibition, is the world-famous "Turfan collection", named after the first of the four Royal Prussian expeditions to the northern Silk Road, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China between 1902 and 1914. The murals, the paintings on fabric and paper, and the clay and wood sculptures of the 3rd to 13th centuries for the most part originate from Buddhist temples. The focal point of this section is the full-scale reconstruction of a square temple decorated with original murals from Cave 123 at the oasis of Kucha.

History

Already in the 19th century, then still under the direction of the Museum für Völkerkunde (Ethnological Museum), Indo-Asian cultural objects were collected systematically. It was not until the period between 1900 and the outbreak of the First World War, however, that more prominent art works were acquired by the Berlin museums. This coincided with a growing interest in Indian culture and, as a result, significant German contributions to research in the field. Between 1902 and 1914, the indologist Albert Grünwedel and the turkologist Albert von LeCoq, researchers of the museums' Indian Department (an independent branch since 1904), carried out four expeditions to the northern Silk Road. They returned to Berlin with unique objects - known as the "Turfan collection" - which, for the first time, offered a vivid impression of the religious and cultural life of the far-away regions of eastern Central Asia in the first millenium AC.

While the First World War had already forestalled the continuation of the Silk Road expeditions, the Second World War caused extensive losses in the Museum of Indian Art's collection (over 2,100 inventory numbers are still listed as artworks lost during the war, many numbers including more than one object). In 1956/57, objects confiscated in the American and British zones of occupation were returned to the collection. A number of art works which the Red Army had taken to the Soviet Union after the end of the war made their way into the Grassi Museum in Leipzig in 1978, and from there they returned to Berlin in 1990. In 2002, the storerooms of the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg revealed around 20 percent of the missing parts of the collection.

In 1963, the Indian Department, previously part of the ethnological collection, was given independent status as an art museum, doing justice to the importance of Indo-Asian high cultures within world cultural heritage. With this step, the first independent research institute for Indo-Asian art was created in Germany.

After the building of a new museum complex at Berlin-Dahlem, the Museum für Indische Kunst was able to present its collections in their own exhibition space for the first time. Since then, new acquisitions, gifts and loans from private collections have been added. Since the year 2000, the newly designed permanent exhibition presents around 400 exhibits from a collection including a total of nearly 20,000 objects. The integration of elements of Indo-Asian religious architecture, the round stupa and the rectangular temple, as well as the use of grey quartzite imported from India, lends the exhibition space an atmosphere of the lands of the art's origin.

Presented by:

Asian Art Museum

German History in Images and Artefacts from Two Millenia

The show offers a sweeping survey of two thousand years of German history and opens a new chapter in the museum’s own history. Eight thousand selected exhibits from the Museum’s own collections, many of them unique historical artefacts, will convey a lively and attractive impression of events past.

The exhibition covers 7,500 m² and is divided into two parts. The period from the first century AD to the abdication of the Kaiser in 1918 is presented on the first floor, while the ground floor houses the sections relating to the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, the Cold War period and the two German states up to the withdrawal of the Allies in 1994.
The exhibits are objects of significance from almost all fields of the historical legacy: documents, paintings and other works of art, books, posters, textiles, furniture, machines and a wide variety of everyday objects, to name but a few. In the methodology of the permanent exhibition these exhibits serve as more than mere illustrations of the historical events. They are presented, explained and placed in their wider context as pieces of history in their own right, focusing on their specific character as historical evidence. This approach produces a unique form of reconstruction of historical relationships and processes, one that speaks directly to the viewer. Rather than presenting a German-centred view, the exhibition consistently places German history in its European context, giving consideration to the many different forms of exchange and political and cultural networking with neighbouring states.

Numerous multimedia elements, models and educational stations deepen and expand the wealth of information on offer.

The Empire of the Incas

Starting in the early 15th century, the Inca rulers soon managed to conquer a gigantic region within an incredibly short period of time. Their empire encompassed more than 100 different ethnic groups in what are today Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and northern Argentina, each with different social and political organizational structures and different languages.

The newly designed section of the exhibition on South American archaeology examines the principles and mechanisms of imperial ideology: what was the nature of the ties between the rulers and the subdued populations? How did the Incas control and secure this immense empire up to the arrival of the Spaniards?

The new exhibition contains over 60 objects of Inca culture, among them knotted cords the Incas used for surveying, rare fabrics, typical clay vessels, stone works and artfully crafted gold and silver works. Each artefact tells of the role it played in stabilizing imperial dominance and maintaining control.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

Treasures of Faith

The most famous testaments to medieval church art from the National Museums’ Museum of Decorative Arts, Berlin, and the Dom-Museum, Hildesheim, have been brought together in a show hosted in the Bode Museum.

Gemälde der „Brücke“

Das Brücke-Museum Berlin präsentiert ab Frühjahr 2012 zahlreiche Gemälde aus verschiedensten Schaffensphasen der „Brücke“. Zu sehen sind Werke der „Brücke“-Mitbegründer Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, aber auch Werke der anderen Mitglieder Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde und Otto Mueller. Diese Gemälde zeigen in kräftigen und oft auch leuchtenden Farben eindrucksvoll beliebte Motive der „Brücke“-Künstler wie z.B. Landschaften, Akte, Portraits oder auch Stilleben.

It’s Enough for 8 Groschen ...

Coins and medals reflect the history of Prussia and its great king in an immediate way: quite literally in the palms of our hands. No other European monarch wrought such wide-reaching changes to his country's coinage and monetary system as Frederick II of Prussia. With his coinage reforms of 1750 and 1764, he not only set Prussia on a new course, but also significantly paved the way for later monetary developments in the rest of Germany.
By radically debasing the currency, specifically of specie (by lowering the quantity of precious metals in newly minted coins), he managed to finance the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). He was just as radical in overhauling the Prussian currency after the war. The mints went from being half-private companies to efficient, state-run money factories. Under Frederick II, gold coins and larger silver coins were standardised across the country in a process that started in 1750. The diversity of territories under Prussian control and their various types of coins and monetary systems are reflected in the coins of the time. The coin portraits of Frederick II reveal a lot about the image of the ruler - from handsome young man in the year of his coronation in 1740 up to his death in 1786, by which time he was dubbed 'Old Fritz'. Besides his great battles and victories, various other kinds of events that took place during his reign are captured on his medals.

The Numismatic Collection holds over 3500 coins from the time of Frederick the Great, thus making it not only the largest, but also the most complete collection of its kind in the world. This particular collection will be published for the first time in its entirety, in a combination of print and online catalogues to mark the celebrations surrounding Frederick II's birth. The result means that the public now has unprecedented access to this historical source on the life of Frederick the Great.

The exhibition is being held as part of a wider series of events called 'Art - King - Enlightenment', coordinated by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in honour of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Frederick the Great on 24 January 2012.

Presented by:
Numismatic Collection

Nicht allein das A-B-C… Aus der Marzahn-Hellersdorfer Schulgeschichte

Die Jahre 1911/12 sind für die Schulgeschichte von Marzahn-Hellersdorf von besonderer Bedeutung. Damals wurden in Kaulsdorf, Biesdorf und Marzahn neue Schulgebäude eingeweiht. Deren 100. Jubiläen bildeten den Anlass für das Bezirksmuseum, eine Ausstellung zu fast 350 Jahren Schulentwicklung von den Anfängen, soweit sie uns bekannt sind, bis in die jüngste Zeit vorzubereiten.
Noch bis ins 19. Jahrhundert wurden in der Schule nicht viel mehr als die elementarsten Fähigkeiten im Lesen, Schreiben und Rechnen vermittelt. Erst mit den neuen Schulen vom Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts wurde moderner Unterricht möglich. Bei der Breite der Thematik kann eine solche Überblicksausstellung nicht alle Bereiche der Schulentwicklung ausbreiten. Sie konzentriert sich in den einzelnen Zeitabschnitten daher auf jeweils typische Aspekte des Lehrens und Lernens.
Zahlreiche Objekte veranschaulichen die in den Texten und Abbildungen gebotenen Informationen. In einer „Schreib- und Lesestube“ können die Besucher sich selbst in Wort und Schrift an den alten Buchstaben und Texten versuchen.

Michael Sailstorfer

The central motif of his first major solo exhibition in Berlin is the forest. Five trees in the installation Forst, hanging upside down and revolving around their own axes, take up the whole of the 10-metre high exhibition space. While Sailstorfer brings nature into the exhibition space here, with his second work Schwarzwald (Black Forest) he takes art into nature: he produced a square field in an area of forest using black paint, which is reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square dating from 1914/15. Its slow disintegration, triggered by natural processes, is watched over by a video camera and transmitted via live stream to a screen in the exhibition space.

Extended opening hours including screenings of selected video works by Michael Sailstorfer (admission free):
April 27, 2012, 6 - 9 pm

Ceramic and Glass

The storerooms of the Museum of Byzantine Art contain an array of ceramics and several surprisingly well preserved glass objects from the East Roman Empire. Most of these objects have never been placed on public display before. Several selected ceramics and some glassware from Egypt and Asia Minor are now on display in rooms 110 and 113 of the Bode Museum.
Several painted and, in some instances, unusually shaped terracotta vessels represent the diversity of pottery craftsmanship in late antique and early Christian Egypt. The earliest examples of glazed ceramic from the Byzantine Empire with ornamentation executed either in paint, scratched plaster (sgraffito) or enamelling in the champlevé technique, date back to the 8th century. The works became markedly more popular from the 10th century onwards and often feature added dots of color that stand up from the ceramic surface.

Like ceramic, glassware was also often part of the smaller finds in excavations of former Byzantine settlements. Together, these artefacts are a testament to the rich diversity of forms and styles of decoration in the multifaceted Byzantine culture of dining.

Presented by:
Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art

Minimalism in Germany. The Sixties II

The first exhibition in the 'Minimalism Germany 1960 series in 2010 comprehensively showed major trends in reduced, abstract 1960s art in Germany from the Daimler Art Collection. The second part concentrates on a small number of protagonists who essentially represent a specifically German aspect of Minimalism as an international trend in the 1960s with large-scale work, serial picture objects and action-oriented work concepts. The exhibition takes the example of striking protagonists, bringing together about 40 works to reflect on trends in Conceptual Art, Minimalism and seriality, linked with the cities of Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Berlin.

An exploration of abstraction a nd the Zero avantgarde developed in Germany in the 1960s,
along with constructive, concrete tendencies toward an in de pendent sort of Minimalism. This
publication is devoted to th ereductionist artwork of German artists who produced large sculptures,
series of visual objects, and action-oriented concepts of work, representing a specifically
German aspect of Minimalism as an international phenomenon of the 1960s.

Essays by Sandra Berchtel, Susannah Cremer-Bermbach, Norbert Grob, Paul Kaiser, Paul Maenz, Gregor Stemmrich, Franz Erhard Walther, Renate Wiehager on minimalist tendencies in art, architecture, literature,
film, dance and design of the period in Germany expand the context.

Around one hundred works by about fourty artists - most from the Daimler Art Collection - are featured, including such diverse artists as Hartmut Böhm, Imi Giese, Hanne Darboven, Hermann Glöckner, Heinz Mack, Peter Roehr, Charlotte Posenenske, Ulrich Rückriem and Franz Erhard Walther.

Fashioning fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 – 1915

An exhibition of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the German Historical Museum

Project management: Dr. Regine Falkenberg, Dr. Tim Urban

With Fashioning fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915 the German Historical Museum is presenting – exclusively in Germany – a unique collection of historical garments and accessories from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. More than 200 years of European fashion history are on display. The renowned Belgian scenographer Bob Verhelst has specially designed the exhibition architecture for Berlin. Glamorous women’s costumes and elegant men’s suits are adorned with elaborately fashioned trimmings. Luxurious clothing of the wealthy haute-bourgeoisie and nobility are shown, including such highlights as the gold-embroidered dress of a Portuguese queen and the turban of the designer Paul Poiret. Fascinating fabrics, exquisitely tailored raiments and precious décor are all to be seen in the museum’s show.

The spectacular exhibition takes us through four chapters focusing on the aesthetic and technical developments of fashion history:

Timeline shows in chronological sequence the changes in the silhouette of women’s dresses and the evolution of men’s suits from brightly coloured to their traditional dark hue.

Textiles informs us about the variety of surfaces that come about through complex weaving, colouring and printing techniques.

Tailoring deals with the process of turning plain material into clothing, with special emphasis on forming, bracing and constricting techniques.

Trim presents the finery of fashionable clothes: delicate laces, magnificent fine-wire embroidery, artful silk trimmings and colourfully patterned and sequined accessories.

Frederick the Great – respected, revered, reviled …

Friedrich II of Prussia – known as Frederick the Great – is one of the most distinctive figures in German history and culture of remembrance. It is the image of “Old Fritz” above all that has marked the German collective memory up to the present day. Yet in the more than 200 years since the death of the Prussian king this memory has been re-evaluated and exploited in many different ways: he was seen as the first servant of the state and as philosopher on the throne, was idolized as military commander and national hero, and later vilified as warmonger and misanthrope. The major temporary exhibition of the German Historical Museum takes the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Prussian king to present an extensive examination of Friedrich’s legacy in art, politics and society. Around 600 objects from Germany and abroad will reflect the eventful history of the sovereign’s reception over time and provide a fascinating survey of Prussian-German and European cultural memory.

Roman Ondák

The basis for his subtle, sharp-witted works is paper—the medium on which he drafts and documents his projects. Ondák’s art occurs in various places, be they museums and galleries, art biennials or art fairs, streets or his home environment. He uses found situations, but changes or stages them such that expectations and conventions begin to totter.

Travelling, moving through space and time, is a continuous theme in Ondák’s work. This is the case in do not walk outside this area, a project the artist conceived specifically for his “Artist of the Year” exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim. The path through the installation leads via the original wing of a Boeing 737-500, which enjoins two exhibition rooms like a bridge. In both rooms, works on paper and installations are devoted to the theme of “travel”. One of them is Balancing at the Toe of the Boot, 2010, a series of seven postcards and sixteen fictional newspaper articles based on a trip to Calabria. To reach the second part of the exhibition, the visitor walks over the wing in the area marked: “Do not walk outside this area,” entering the unreachable surface that otherwise can only be seen out of the window of an aircraft cabin.

Ondák not only plays with a reversal of inside and outside, but also with the conventions of the art industry. Everyone knows the prohibitions, barriers, and boundaries that lend artworks a valuable, exclusive aura and thus fetishize them: Please do not touch! Do not come too close. No photographs. But Ondák’s wing is not a hallowed sculpture. It is an object of use that we are supposed to enter and touch. This footbridge serves as a runway for our ideas, memories, and fantasies. In the age of global mobility, Ondák invites us to take an inner, imaginary journey.

After Wangechi Mutu (2010) and Yto Barrada (2011), Roman Ondák is the Deutsche Bank “Artist of the Year” for 2012. On the recommendation of the Deutsche Bank Global Art Advisory Council, consisting of the renowned curators Okwui Enwezor, Hou Hanru, Udo Kittelmann and Nancy Spector, the bank honors contemporary artists who have created an extraordinary oeuvre in which works on paper or photography play an important role.

ARTIST OF THE YEAR


A focus on young art: like its corporate collection, Deutsche Bank’s award, the “Artist of the Year,” is committed to the present. The aim is to acquaint a wide public with new and exciting artistic positions. Based on a recommendation by Deutsche Bank’s Global Art Advisory Council, which includes internationally renowned curators Okwui Enwezor, Hou Hanru, Udo Kittelmann, and Nancy Spector, the bank honors an auspicious artist who has already amassed an unmistakable and extraordinary oeuvre that concentrates on the two focal points of the Deutsche Bank Collection: works on paper and photography. This year the prize is being awarded for the third time. The “Artist of the Year 2012” is Roman Ondák.

The award is not based on a financial reward, but is positioned as an integral part of Deutsche Bank’s art program that has been opening up the world of contemporary art to the public for the last thirty years – through Deutsche Bank’s own substantial collection, its exhibitions, and its joint projects with partners. The “Artist of the Year” is featured in a solo exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, and the exhibition subsequently moves on to other international institutions. An exclusive edition designed by the artist and a catalog will appear concurrently with the exhibition. In addition, on this occasion a selection of the artist’s works on paper will be acquired for the Deutsche Bank Collection.

Alles Geritzt - Antike Graffiti im Wohn- und Straßenraum

Alles Geritzt - Antike Graffiti im Wohn- und Straßenraum

Dodo (1907-1998) - A Life in Pictures

The first ever presentation and long-overdue rediscovery of Dodo’s graphic work provides a broad insight into an artistic life that was shaped by constant upheaval. Dodo, born in 1907 in Berlin as Dörte Clara Wolff, enjoyed a care-free upbringing in a wealthy Jewish milieu. Even as a young woman, she possessed an allure over those around her and a nature that was uncompromising and intensely emotional.

BORIS MIKHAILOV

Since he first began working with photography in the mid 1960s, Boris Mikhailov (*1938 in Kharkov/Ukraine) has produced a wide, impressively complex and multifaceted oeuvre.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff - Holzstöcke

Noch bis zum 20. Mai zeigt das Brücke-Museum Berlin in einer Sonderausstellung im großen Saal Holzstöcke von Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Der Mitbegründer der Künstlergemeinschaft „Brücke“ entwickelte schon früh eine besondere Affinität für den Werkstoff Holz. Als Holzstock wird die Druckplatte bezeichnet, von der das Motiv für die graphischen Holzschnitte abgezogen wird. Somit offenbaren diese Druckstöcke aus Holz unmittelbar die schöpferische Genese des Holzschnittes und dokumentieren, noch stärker als der flächige Druck auf Papier, die besondere Auseinandersetzung des Künstlers mit dem Material. Die Druckstöcke des Künstlers werden in der Ausstellung den entsprechenden graphischen Blättern direkt gegenübergestellt.

ART IN BERLIN 1880-1980

The Berlinische Galerie collects art produced in Berlin since 1870. From now on, the museum will be presenting internationally acclaimed works from the fields of painting, graphic art, sculpture, photography and architecture in new exhibition architecture designed by the Berlin architectural office of David Saik.

Surreal Worlds

The Collection Scharf-Gerstenberg is exhibiting excellent works by the Surrealists and their forerunners. Paintings, sculptures and works on paper are being exhibited on three floors under the title "Surreal Worlds". The spectrum of artists ranges from Piranesi, Goya, Klinger and Redon to Dalí, Magritte, Max Ernst and Dubuffet.

The history of fantastical art is traced in more than 250 works. Surrealism, a movement seeking to renew art whose principles were proclaimed in a manifesto by André Breton in the Paris of 1924, is at the centre of the collection.
Nearly all members of the group of Surrealists are represented by selected works in the collection. There are larger groups of works, in particular, by René Magritte, Max Ernst and Hans Bellmer, but also by Wols and Paul Klee. The central pictorial strategies of Surrealism, such as combinatorics, metamorphosis and pure psychic automatism are illustrated by numerous virtuoso examples.
Surrealism has its place in a significant line of tradition in occidental art. The earliest works in the collection include Piranesi's illustrations of fantastical dungeon architecture as well as the nightmarish ghostly figures in Goya's etchings. French Symbolism of the late 19th century is represented by paintings of Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau, as is its German counterpart in the form of graphic cycles of Max Klinger.
The spectrum of art on exhibit is augmented by a film programme which includes both the classic surrealist films of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí as well as films by contemporary artists who draw upon Surrealism or use its formal instruments in their work.

Presented by:

National Gallery

Museum for Pre- And Early History with objects from the Collection of Classical Antiquities

The Museum of Prehistory and Early History presents its expansive collection together with objects from the Collection of Classical Antiquities on three floors of the Neues Museum.

Visitors are greeted on the ground floor by the room entitled "Odin, Urns, Looted Art", which presents the 180 year old history of the museum, with preserved wall paintings depicting scenes from Nordic mythology. The following room is dedicated to Heinrich Schliemann, who bequeathed his collection of Trojan antiquities to the museum "for their eternal preservation". The room beyond that reveals how various influences in the art and culture of Cyprus conflated in a unique way on the island.

On the first floor, the museum's piano nobile, the visitor is led from the Roman bronze statue of the Xanten Boy, into "The Roman Provinces". From there, the visitor has access to the "Pantheon" - Chipperfield's new South Dome Room, in which two colossal statues of divinities from the 2nd century AD originating from the Egyptian city of Lycopolis await visitors. The next room, "Rome's Northern Neighbours" is dedicated to the tensions between Rome and the Germanic peoples, while "Migration Period and Middle Ages" provides an insight into the time from the Migration Period to the Carolingian Renaissance.

The second floor takes the visitor back to the earliest history of humankind: from the Stone Age, with the famous finds of the Neanderthal from Le Moustier and of modern man from Combe Capelle, through the Neolithic Period and into the Bronze Age. The Berlin Gold Hat exerts a particular fascination here, whose secret symbolism illustrates how exactly calendric knowledge was preserved even so long ago. The tour ends in the Ice Age, with its rich Scythian and Celtic finds. The study collection in historical cabinets from the 19th century complement the exhibition.

Presented by:

Museum of Prehistory and Early History
Collection of Classical Antiquities

The Berlin Sculpture Find

Directly opposite Berlin's town hall, the Rotes Rathaus, in the city's historical centre, eleven sculptures from the high modernist period were unearthed during archaeological finds conducted in 2010. This spectacular find throws new light on the fate of the artworks that were removed from the museums as part of the Nazi's 'Degenerate Art' campaign, subsequently ridiculed in Nazi-orchestrated exhibitions and which had remained missing to this day.

The works, once thought irretrievably lost, will be placed on show in the Neues Museum from 9 November 2010 on the Museum Island Berlin. They include:

• Otto Baum, Girl Standing, 1930
• Otto Freundlich, Head, 1925
• Karl Knappe, Hagar, 1923
• Marg Moll, Dancer, around 1930
• Emy Roeder, Pregnant Woman, 1918
• Edwin Scharff, Portrait of the Actress Anni Mewes, 1917/1921
• Gustav Heinrich Wolff, Robed Figure Standing, 1925
• Naum Slutzky, Female Bust, before 1931

The find also includes some still unidentified works that depict:
• a standing robed figure with a bunch of grapes
• a male torso
• a male head

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication (available in German) that gives details of the circumstances surrounding the find, the artists and works:

Private Property

The double exhibition - 'Us and Them' and 'Sex and Landscapes' - with which the Helmut Newton Foundation opened in June 2004, and which can still be visited at the first floor of the former Landwehrkasino until the beginning of 2005, is being supplemented by a presentation of Helmut Newton's personal items from 3 November 2004.

For this exhibition, entitled 'Private Property', further spacious exhibition rooms have been set up at ground level in the Museum for Photography. The show includes Newton's cameras, his own photo and art collection, the famous Newton-Mobile, his library and parts of his office at Monte Carlo. It also includes posters of his exhibitions and numerous publications of Helmut Newton's photographs.

The group project 'Us and Them' is a type of photographic diary by Helmut Newton and June Newton, dedicated to the portrait. The exhibition 'Sex and Landscape', on the other hand, shows a different Helmut Newton. Here, large-scale scenes and landscapes, in both black and white and colour, dating from the 1970s until today, are on show side by side. There are dark, clouded seascapes and breaking waves at Monte Carlo, Baroque statues in an Italian town, a seemingly endless desert highway nearby Las Vegas, and the Berliner Grunewald lake, all of them tinted with glamour and interwoven with sexual references to the female body.

Presented by:

Helmut Newton Foundation

Picasso and his Time

The Museum Berggruen presents exceptional works of classic modern art. Included among the artists are Picasso, Klee, Giacometti and Matisse. Oil paintings, sculptures and various works on paper are on show on three floors under the title "Picasso and his Time".

More than 100 works by Picasso form the heart of the collection. The many facets of his life's-work are represented: beginning with a drawing from his student days in 1897 and ending with works he painted in 1972, one year before he died. The blue and pink period are represented as well as cubism and classicism. Since the 1920s Picasso practised different variations in style at the same time.

The collection also focuses on Paul Klee who is represented with more than 60 pictures. These small, delicate compositions reflect the poetic world of the artist from 1917 to 1940. In addition there are more than 20 works by Henri Matisse, including more than half a dozen of his famous paper-cuts. Sculptures by Alberto Giacometti as well as examples of African art also enrich the heart of the collection.

Presented by:

National Gallery

Museum of Decorative Arts at the Kulturforum Potsdamer Platz

The Museum of Decorative Arts is one of the oldest of its kind in Germany. It possesses one of the most important collections of skilled craftsmanship. A tour of the spacious building at the Kulturforum Potsdamer Platz takes visitors through 7,000 square metres of exhibition room revealing the historical development and great variety of applied arts and crafts from the Middle Ages through to Art Nouveau and up to the present day.

This museum collects works of skilled craftsmanship ranging from post-antiquity to the present. It encompasses all the styles and periods in art history and includes silks and costumes, tapestries, decorative wainscots and furniture, vessels made of glass, enamel and porcelain, works in silver and gold as well as contemporary crafts and design objects. Most of the materials involved are of great value. Many items were commissioned by representatives of the church, the royal court and members of the aristocracy.

Presented by:

Museum of Decorative Arts

Museum of Islamic Art at Pergamon Museum

The Museum of Islamic Art is situated in the south wing of the Pergamonmuseum. Its permanent exhibition is dedicated to the art of Islamic peoples from the eighth to the nineteenth century. The works of art originate from the vast area stretching from Spain to India. The collection's main focus is on the Middle East including Egypt and Iran.
The broad spectrum of the collection includes architectural decorations, applied arts and crafts, jewelry, and rare illuminated and calligraphed manuscripts. The architectural decorations represent one of the major attractions, conveying also typical concepts of space and environments in various media: stone (the façade from Mshatta), stuccoes (archaeological finds from Samarra), painted wooden panelling (Aleppo Room) and wall ceramics in various techniques (prayer niches from Kashan and Konya).

The applied arts include works in all possible materials: ceramic vessels, metalwork, carvings in wood and bone, glasses, textiles, carpets. Within the area of books and ancient writings, the calligraphic works and miniatures from albums of Mogul times are of particular significance.

Presented by:
Museum of Islamic Art