2011 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

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Prof. Dr. Ulrich Bischoff, Prof. Dr. Martin Roth, Georg Baselitz
and Dr. Andreas Henning at the opening of the exhibition
“Georg Baselitz. Dresdner Frauen” in the Gemäldegalerie
Alte Meister in 2009 (from left to right)
Between 2001 and 2011 Martin Roth achieved a great deal
in Dresden, and he is confident enough to know that. The
dedication he demonstrated during the flood disaster of
2002 has not been forgotten. The Director-General himself
stood in the flood water wearing Wellington boots and
passing works of art to safety out of the storerooms; again
and again, even while the crisis was acute, he made telephone
calls to the relevant ministries to ensure that new
structures, buildings and financial assistance would be
forthcoming; and just a few minutes later he gave a radio
interview by mobile phone on Deutschlandfunk, asking
for donations. That was not the only Herculean task which
he undertook in the past 10 years – both at local and international
level. Museum buildings such as the Grünes
Gewölbe and the Albertinum were completely redeveloped
and re-established internationally, whilst other museum
buildings were restored almost without it being noticed.
He organised funding for the restoration of important
works of art, held significant symposiums, negotiated with
the House of Wettin and others concerning the restitution
of art treasures. Whereas other museums still refuse to
implement the resolutions of the Washington and Berlin
Declarations of 1998 and 1999 regarding works of art
looted by the National Socialists, the Dresden museums
are among the first to have established their own provenance
research project. In this respect, the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden have the reputation of investigating
disputed cases objectively and fairly.
Martin Roth built up international contacts throughout
the world to an extent that is matched by few other
At the initiative of Prof. Dr. Martin Roth the first
exhibition featuring works by Gerhard Richter took
place in the Albertinum in 2005
View of the flooded Zwinger courtyard
on 18 August 2002: the Mathematisch-
Physikalischer Salon (left) and the
Semper Building with the Gemäldegalerie
Alte Meister (right)
museums. He established a strong alliance with his colleagues
Schuster and Baumstark – later Eissenhauer and
Schrenk – in Berlin and Munich, which bore its first fruits
in the successful European exhibition in Brussels in 2007.
He brought Georg Baselitz and Gerhard Richter back to
Dresden, establishing an archive for the latter and organising
a programme for modern and contemporary art that
was unprecedented in Dresden. In respect of art historical
research, he gave a free hand to the directors and curators
under his authority: Roth was the decision maker, the
organiser, the facilitator who constantly had to keep an
eye on all twelve museums of the Dresden museum alliance
and to do so in such a way that no director could feel
disadvantaged in comparison with his colleagues. If some
of them did feel that way, it was certainly not outwardly
evident.
It is primarily on account of these activities, which have
taken some employees to their physical and mental limits,
that culture has become the key factor for tourism and
commerce in the capital of Saxony. Martin Roth’s commanding
presence as a cultural facilitator would long since
have qualified him for even higher tasks. But when positions
in the Berlin museum landscape were redistributed
five years ago, the man from Dresden was deliberately
by-passed – although some of those directly involved had
given their approval. Roth, however, was regarded – in the
Berlin State Ministry of Culture, among others – as uncontrollable;
for example when he repeatedly pointed out that
many museums now have neither resources for purchases
nor a secure budget for exhibitions.