2009 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

72
Hermann Josef Hack and his installation
”Climate Refugee Camp” in the Kleiner Schlosshof
Museum admission with an Elton John ticket
Another form of the amalgamation of music and fine art
also enjoyed a positive response. The combination of
concerts with a museum visit, which was started last year
by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the
Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, was continued. On 3rd July 2009,
the day of Elton John’s huge open-air summer concert on
Theaterplatz in Dresden, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
stayed open until 9 p.m. Ticket-holders for the concert
could enter the gallery without charge until shortly before
the start of the concert, and other visitors benefited from
the extended opening hours. Concert ticket-holders were
also entitled to visit a museum of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden of their own choice during the next
two weeks.
Climate refugee camps in Leipzig and Dresden
With an installation consisting of 500 miniature tents he
had made himself, Hermann Josef Hack – an artist who
focuses on global environmental changes and their social
effects – drew public attention to the catastrophic situation
facing more and more people in the world. For one
day each in May, he transformed the market place in
Leipzig and Palaisplatz and the Kleiner Schlosshof of the
Residenzschloss in Dresden into “climate refugee camps”
by setting up his installation. The Staatliche Ethnographische
Sammlungen Sachsen in association with the
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden had invited the
artist to Saxony. Both institutions saw his artistic interpretation
of this current issue as an effective way of raising
public awareness of the problem.
A modern interpretation of the two cherubs
in Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” created for an
online competition
Virtual homage to the famous cherubs
For its online museum in “Second Life”, the Gemäldegalerie
Alte Meister sought depictions of the most famous incidental
figures in art history: the two cherubs in Raphael’s
“Sistine Madonna”. In 2008 the museum was the first in
the world to be completely and faithfully reproduced in
“Second Life”. On 31st July 2009, at the GAMES CONVEN-
TION ONLINE in Leipzig, the new Community “Friends of
Dresden Gallery” was formed and under this name they
launched a cherub exhibition. A total of 60 entries were
viewed by a jury consisting of art historians and advertising
specialists, and from December 2009 onwards they
were presented in an exhibition in the virtual “Dresden
Gallery”.
“In the Maelstrom of Art”
In 2009 the imminent reopening of the Albertinum was
announced not only through the presence of construction
cranes but also through public discussion. In a series of
talks held under the motto “Im Sog der Kunst“ (In the
Maelstrom of Art), which will extend up to the opening in
summer 2010, international museum directors and architects
are presenting their conceptual plans. “In the case of
museums, as public places, changes, restructuring measures
and new concepts are viewed particularly critically,”
says Director-General of the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen
Dresden, Prof. Dr. Martin Roth. “New conceptual approaches
and the refurbishment of exhibitions are a
challenge for every museum, but they are also an opportunity
to think things over. It is therefore particularly important
to us to combine the countdown to the reopening