Annual Report 2010 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

p.82: striking dimensions: a visitor to the exhibition
“The Promised Land” in the albertinum in front of Martin Honert’s
“Giants” on loan from the Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
The exhibition area of the Grünes Gewölbe at EXPO 2010 in
shanghai, with reproductions of the rooms of the Historisches
Grünes Gewölbe …
5.4 MI llIon VISIt tH e eXH I B ItIon
I n SHAnGHAI CoMBInInG SCI enCe
An D ARt
The Grünes Gewölbe of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden participated in EXPO 2010 in Shanghai by exhibiting
25 top­quality works of art. In the Pavilion of Urban
Footprint high resolution life­size photographs depicting
several of the display walls of the Historisches Grünes
Gewölbe were also presented. In addition, several masterpieces
from the Neues Grünes Gewölbe were also on view
in the form of photographic reproductions. This manner
of presenting the rooms is based on state­of­the­art
phototechnical processes which give the viewer an authentic
impression of the original exhibition rooms in the
Residenzschloss in Dresden. From 1st May until 31st October,
2010, as many as 5.4 million visitors were able to admire
the treasures of the Grünes Gewölbe without actually
being in Dresden. For the Director­General of the
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Prof. Dr. Martin
Roth, this was a magnificent success: “Technical innovations
present completely new possibilities for future museum
exhibitions. Museums thereby become accessible to
much larger numbers and attract much younger people.”
This is a unique opportunity, particularly in respect of
mediation and cultural education, he continued.
The architectural photographer Prof. Jörg Schöner specialises
in producing life­size photographs of entire building
complexes, in which every detail is visible. Curators of
…and at eight-fold magnification …
… the “royal Household of the Grand
Mogul” by Johann Melchior Dinglinger
historic monuments and restorers can then precisely
evaluate the condition of the building’s state of preservation
by viewing the images on a computer. Jörg Schöner,
who is Professor of Architectural Photography at the
Technische Universität Dresden, also specialises in photographic
reproductions of the Grünes Gewölbe. Using
high­resolution computer­processed hyper­reproductions,
display walls and objects from the Grünes Gewölbe are
visually recreated. For this purpose, he has developed a
special phototechnical process in which “first­choice” elements
taken from among hundreds of digital images are
pieced together on the computer. This high­resolution
technology makes it possible to present small things on a
magnified scale and thus make them visible. This enables
visitors to see details which remain hidden in the museum
exhibition owing to their tiny size.
For the Royal Household of the Grand Mogul alone, Schöner
has combined more than 1,200 individual image files
using this complex process. “Through this method, the
visitors are able to experience the Royal Household in a
practically physical way, to virtually walk into the work of
art. This gives free rein to the imagination of visitors, and
restorers, curators and researchers can obtain a great deal
of additional information,” said the Director of the Grünes
Gewölbe, Prof. Dr. Dirk Syndram. In Shanghai, display walls
of the Silver Gilt Room, the Pretiosa Room and the Jewel
Room were on display as life­size reproductions. In front
of the photographed walls, 25 works of art were exhibited
in showcases.
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