On 14 December 2023 in Berlin: Event "Explore and give back ..."
27.11.2023
Berlin State Museums, Old National Gallery / Jörg P. Anders
Fast 80 years after the end of the Second World War, the systematic looting of cultural assets by the National Socialists, particularly those belonging to Jews, has still not been fully analysed. The foundations for this enormous task were laid 25 years ago at a conference in Washington, with fundamental consequences for the art world. Since then, many museums, libraries and archives have been working intensively on the subject.
There is now extensive experience with provenance research and restitution, as well as with finding fair and just solutions with the descendants of the victims. In recent years, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has restituted over 350 works of art and around 2,000 books. But with each new case, new perspectives open up and new questions arise. And today in particular, it is becoming increasingly important to tell the stories behind the artworks and books in order to convey the crimes of the National Socialists to a younger generation.
The evening aims to show how researchers, curators and lawyers work together - and how their work and the stories of the works and their provenance are also visible in museums today: in publications, „Provenance Traces“ and films.
Introduction
- Ralph Gleis, Director of the Alte Nationalgalerie
- Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
Works, cases, restitutions
- Hans von Maree's „Self-Portrait with Yellow Hat“ from the Max Silberberg Collection Presented by Dorothea Kathmann, Head of the Presidential Department and the Legal Department of the SPK until 2021, and Petra Winter, Director of the Central Archive and Head of Provenance Research at the National Museums in Berlin
- Reinhold Begas „Susanna“ from the Rudolf Mosse Collection Presented by Sven Haase, provenance researcher at the Central Archive of the National Museums in Berlin and Carola Thielecke, Head of the Central Legal Department of the SPK
- Music from the collection of Arthur Rubinstein presented by a film by Steffen Prell from the project „Kunst, Raub und Rückgabe - Vergessene Lebensgeschichten“, which the SPK and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen have launched together with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg and Bayerischer Rundfunk
25 years after Washington: What's next?
A panel discussion with Petra Winter (Central Archive), Carola Thielecke (Legal Department), Catherine Hickley (journalist for Art Newspaper, New York Times etc.) and Anja Studzinski (lawyer)
Moderation
Shelly Kupferberg
Time and place
Thursday, 14 December 2023, 7 pm
Old National Gallery
Bodestraße 1-3, 10178 Berlin
Registration
Unfortunately, the event is already fully booked.
Further link
Articles in the SPK magazine „Zurückgegeben“
The event is funded by the project „Art, Looting and Restitution - Forgotten Life Stories“ by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM)
