Δ Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the art of Cameroon

In June 1905 the artists’ association “Die Brücke” was founded in Dresden by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. These four academy friends were determined to find “immediate and unadulterated” new ways of artistic expression and to leave the path of academic rules and traditions. The “Brücke” sets the beginning of modern art in Germany, their representatives being curious men who wished to go beyond national and cultural borders. During their visits of the collections of the Ethnological Museums in Dresden and Berlin – then felt as “exotic” – the members of the group received powerful incentives from the material culture of extra-European societies, especially in the years between 1907 and 1910.

The exhibition “Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the art of Cameroon” is meant as a study about Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) and his relationship to the art of Cameroon. It presents 15 exhibits of African art jointly with 16 of Kirchner’s works. Its aim is to document how African sculpture in general and that of Cameroon in particular affected the painting and plastic art of the Expressionist artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. It was suggested by the discovery that Kirchner possessed a genuine work of Cameroonian wood carving. It is a leopard stool made in the 19th century, the art work of a Babanki master carver from the Tungo Area. This stool accompanied Kirchner over nearly thirty years of his life, and it claims centre stage in the exhibition.

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Δ Travelling and Discovering.

The exhibition Travelling and discovering: from the Sepik to the Main puts 124 objects taken from the internationally renowned Oceania Collection of the Museum of World Cultures on show. At the beginning of the 1960s these had been acquired in Papua New Guinea by scientists of the Frobenius Institute for the Frankfort Ethnological Museum. During two research expeditions heading for the Sepik River area in the north eastern part of the island they collected carved ancestor figures, debating stools, paintings on palm leaf sheaths and “sacred flutes” – counted today among the highlights of the museum. In Frankfort these have been exhibited only twice in the past: in 1964 in the Städel’sches Kunstinstitut and in 1987 in the Kunsthalle Schirn.

Visitors are invited to enter the flow of time and undertake a journey in the company of the exhibits. We’ll start on the Sepik River at the beginning of the 1960s to gain a view into male and female spheres of life and an understanding of the institution of the men’s house. Continuing our way we will gain impressions of the collecting activities of the researchers in the field. A series of photos will introduce us to the transport of the collection from the Sepik River to the Main.

As an exemplary mode of the presentation of ethnographic objects in a museum the style of the 1960s is reconstructed: considered as scientific evidence objects are staged in the form of dioramas with photos and text panels. At the end of the journey all objects have become ‘pure’ works of art and have arrived in the gallery of the present.

In a replicated museum’s storeroom visitors will have the opportunity to get more information on the exhibits. An explorer’s handbook will help children to find the way to their own research station where they can touch things themselves.

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