2009 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Thangka of Yamantaka Vajrabhairava,
China, canvas in silk frame, 18th cent.,
Speck von Sternburg Collection
Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of
Compassion, China, wood/lacquer
gold/paint, 18th cent., Speck von
Sternburg Collection
University of Technology (TU Dresden). There are, of course,
especially close relations with the Art History department,
but also with the Institutes of History and Sociology, and
with the Faculty of Architecture.
The forms of collaboration in research and teaching are
very varied. Honorary professorships and lectureships for
directors and curators of the museums, e.g. at the Institute
of Art and Music Studies; the supervision of dissertations
and doctoral theses on museum-related themes, such as
Art History theses written in 2009 on the subject of
graphic sheets held in the Kunstkammer and the former
Director of the Gemäldegalerie, Hermann Voss; involvement
in the University’s new large-scale special research
project (SFB 804) entitled “Transzendenz und Gemeinsinn”
(Transcendence and Community Spirit); practical training
opportunities for students in nearly all departments and
museums of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden;
participation in lecture series, and many other activities.
Close relations are also cultivated with the private outsourced
branch of the University, Dresden International
University, and particularly its “Culture & Management”
course.
An interesting project for honing the academic profile of
the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden over the next
few years will be its participation in the University’s new
excellence initiative. Under the label “Dresden Concept”,
Dresden University of Technology, in association with the
most important non-university research institutes in
Dresden, such as the various Max Planck and Fraunhofer
Institutes, will elaborate plans for intensifying the combi-
Collected by Bernhard
Struck for the Museum
für Völkerkunde Dresden
in 1931: Iran Figure, Bidyogo,
Carache island, late
19th /early 20th cent.
Photograph taken in 1931: Masked dancers in a Pepel
village, Bissagos islands; from the estate of the African
explorer and former employee of the Dresden
Völkerkundemuseum, Bernhard Struck (1888 – 1971)
nation of university and non-university research in order
to reinforce Dresden’s image as a centre of academic research.
The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen are, of course,
involved.
EXAMPLE: StA AtLICH E EtH NOGRA-
PH ISCH E SAMMLU NGEN SACHSEN
The intensification of cooperation between the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the Staatliche
Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen will bring about a
merger between two different academic cultures – with
all the risks but also with all the opportunities that can
arise from exchange between art historians, cultural studies
specialists and historians on the one hand, and ethnologists
on the other. Just as it has always been customary
for scholars from the Mathematisch-Physikalischer
Salon to discuss their research queries and findings with
colleagues from the Kupferstich-Kabinett, it will in future
be customary for the experts from the Grünes Gewölbe to
consult and develop joint projects with those from the
Ethnographische Sammlungen.
That intensive research is being conducted at the Ethnographische
Sammlungen is evidenced by current projects
such as the investigation and publication of the Peking
Collection assembled by Hermann Freiherr Speck von
Sternburg and the analysis of the collection bequeathed
by the Africanist Professor Bernhard Struck.
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