In the Berlin Humboldt Forum, the institutions involved want to improve presentation and collaboration. After criticism and a difficult start with numerous delays, General Director Hartmut Dorgerloh, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, and Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer made this clear in talks with the German Press Agency in Berlin.
The Humboldt Forum, which cost 680 million euros, was the most important German cultural project and was opened in July after years of discussion and some delays. The 40,000 square meter building is used by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation with two of its museums, the State of Berlin, the Humboldt University and the Humboldt Forum Foundation. Exhibits from Asia, Africa, America and Oceania as well as objects on the history of Berlin are shown. In the future, the Benin bronzes, which are considered colonial looted goods, will also be presented in the future, which will probably be on view with the last opening step in mid-2022.
According to Dorgerloh, there will be “more cooperative processes” in the future. “The fact that we are now a stable network of partners is the result of intensive work over the past few years,” he told the dpa. “In practice this will certainly have to become even more clearly visible.”
“Our motto is ‘from addition to integration'”, he said. All actors have first moved into the house with their own programs and ideas. “Now the question is what we do together. And that is clearly in the direction of more cooperative processes.” His job is to set topics that are particularly important for the entire house.
Dorgerloh reported a great deal of approval. “But there are individual areas where, in my opinion, there is also justified and understandable criticism. Those involved will now improve and rework.” He sees a need for the Ethnological Museum, for example. “I clearly expect – and this will happen – that the address and explanation for the audience will be optimized again in the area of the Luf boat.”
The historian Götz Aly had fueled the debate about the colonial conditions under which the large outrigger boat from the South Sea island of Luf came into the museum’s possession. “That is important from our point of view,” said Dorgerloh about the planned better classification. “It is very nice to know that the State Museums see it that way too. Now we are together to consider how this can be done in concrete terms.”
Improvements are also being made in other areas of the house. The cooperation of the organizations is “not a deficit-oriented competitive community”. It is about strengthening and supplementing the respective potential.
Parzinger sees the museums as well positioned. “But it is a very intense debate that will of course continue,” he told the dpa. “When museum areas are opened, the debate does not end. But the debate must not only be carried out on the back of the museums.”
“You have to break away from the idea of a static museum, it will keep moving,” said Parzinger. “The Humboldt Forum is a space for negotiation, a venue, perhaps a laboratory. We are constantly learning, especially in the cooperation with the countries and societies of origin.” With a view to the debate about restitutions, he said: “There is no alternative to the path that our museums take with the countries of origin, and it will set an example. Because returns alone do not initiate a dialogue; we want to work, think, research and work together exhibit.”
Parzinger was confident about the cooperation between the institutions in the Humboldt Forum. With the opening of the entire house, the individual parts came together step by step. It is important to see what has proven itself and what should be changed.
Lederer sees the Humboldt Forum in a development process. “The debates about the non-European collections show that there is still a lot to learn and a lot to do when dealing with cultural assets,” said the left-wing politician of the dpa. “The stories of how they came here and what their function, their own story is, are still not told enough, there are still too many of these art treasures simply in display cases.”
“The Humboldt Forum wants to be a figurehead of the foreign cultural policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, which is supposed to characterize cosmopolitanism and diversity – if it is to live up to this claim, we have to look carefully.” The “rebuilding of this city palace” was a purely political decision, “without it being clear at the time what you actually wanted with the house,” he said. “Ultimately, everyone involved can consider themselves lucky that the idea arose that a Humboldt Forum could be made out of it.”
(S E R V I C E – www.humboldtforum.org)