Annual Report 2010 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

12
albrecht Dürer’s “The Virgin as Mater Dolorosa”
(on loan from the Bayerische staatsgemaldesammlungen
Munich) and the seven panels
depicting “The seven sorrows of the Virgin”
Cyriacus reder (röder),
Portrait of Elector august
looKI nG BACK An D looKI nG AH eAD
– 450 YeARS oF tH e StA AtlICH e
Ku nStSAMMlu nGen DReSDen
“Zukunft seit 1560” (State of the Art since 1560) – this was
the heading given by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden to their anniversary year. This motto clearly expresses
the exceptional nature of the year 2010 for the
Dresden collections: reviewing 450 years of one’s own
history is an important cause for celebration and commemoration,
but also a moment for taking stock and focusing
on the challenges of the future. In the year 2010, all
these aspects were combined at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden.
Initially, there was some controversy as to whether this
year was really suitable for celebrating an anniversary – for
what specific date can be regarded as the undisputed
starting point of the collections, which, shaped by the diverse
collecting interests of historic personages, have determined
the character of today’s collections? The presentday
structure of the museum alliance (which now encompasses
12 museums) is still very young, having been established
only a good half­century ago. Despite this relatively
short history as an institution, the collecting of scientific
and artistic objects in Dresden began much earlier.
When exactly the Saxon rulers began to accumulate
things which they regarded as valuable and worth preserving
cannot be established with certainty. The passion
for beautifully crafted objects is unlikely to have suddenly
emerged at the Saxon court; it probably developed over a
in the chapter entitled “Confrontation”, the anniversary
Exhibition dealt with difficult themes:
“Degenerate art” and “special Commission: Linz”
number of years. The singular event which steered this
passion in a more specific direction and which has reverberated
throughout history, to be heard loud and clear in
the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in 2010, was the establishment
of the Kunstkammer (Art Chamber) on the third
floor of Dresden Palace by Elector August in 1560. The evidence
for this is the mention of this event in the first
printed description of the Kunstkammer produced in 1671.
The Kunstkammer marked the beginning of concentrated,
systematic and, above all, future­oriented collecting activity.
Art and science were closely associated and the
boundaries between scientific curiosity and the desire for
prestige were fluid. All these characteristics constitute a
leitmotif which permeates the history of the art collections.
The most fascinating perspective among them is,
however, the orientation towards the future whilst being
aware of one’s own historicity or, to put it another way,
the idea of collecting as constituting a moment in which
history is made. The central theme of the anniversary year
“Zukunft seit 1560” (literally: Future since 1560) is therefore
more than just a simple motto. Rather, it is the condensed
form of a deeply rooted self­image which has been
cultivated in the collections over numerous generations.
the exhibition
It is therefore not surprising that the concept behind the
exhibition “State of the Art since 1560 – The Exhibition”
was greatly influenced by this forward­looking view.
It provides the background against which the colourful
panorama of the development of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
unfolds. The Anniversary Exhibition was the