The window opening onto the nature and art: a comprehensive historical-critical investigation of the Brandenburgish-Prussian Art Chamber seen as an observatory, a laboratory, communications space, and showroom of knowledge

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Horst Bredekamp; Professor Dr. Michael Eissenhauer; Professor Dr. Johannes Vogel
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 384478093

The aim of the research project is, first of all, to achieve a comprehensive reconstruction of the collections of the Brandeburgish-Prussian Kunstkammer, which on the one hand represent the nucleus of the Berlin museum landscape and on the other hand, as a re-opened window to the world, can be understood as a spiritus rector of the Humboldt Forum. This first area of research will foreground the systematic generation of object biographies on the basis of a broad survey of materials comprising the collections of the Museum of Natural History, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, as well as Humboldt University in Berlin. The second field of research will focus on the scientific and theoretical foundations of the Kunstkammer as well as on the scenographies and practices of knowledge-production that were related to this principle of universal collecting. Furthermore, the aim will be to develop seminal approaches to a global theory of collecting that will perhaps, on a new level of thought, even allow for a reevaluation of colonial or post-colonial interpretations by exchanging this perspective for a theory of open globalism that places the appreciation of the individual artwork at the center. In this context, a reconstruction attempt shall be undertaken by a cultural-historical and social-geographic investigation as well as a conceptual clarification of the genuine principle of collecting and exhibiting in all cultures. The third emphasis will lie on sounding out the Kunstkammers potentials as a model for the future. The culture-spanning model of the Kunstkammer will be spotlighted as a potentially universal concept of collecting. In this context, contemporary exhibitions that follow the Kunstkammer-principle in their arrangement will be questioned in terms of their knowledge-generating strategies. Furthermore, it will be assessed in how far structures of exteriorization as offered by digital and analogous techniques can be combined as strategies of a »reassurance of knowledge« and as rudiments for a fundamental reformulation and articulation of this type of order and presentation. Ultimately, the insights gained through these comprehensive investigations are thought to merge into a digital databank that will offer virtual access to the Brandenburgish-Prussian Kunstkammer also after the research projects conclusion. Over and above this, ideal concepts will be developed for a future three-dimensional presence of the Brandenburgish-Prussian Kunstkammer in the Humboldt Forum.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants