2008 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Projects of the Museum Education Service
in the Grünes Gewölbe
4 P. S. Concerning the “China Year”: Guided tours in Chinese
were available for all the special exhibitions in the series.
Chinese has now become one of the standard languages
for guided tours offered by the Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister and the Neues Grünes Gewölbe.
VisiTiNg mUsEUms WiTh A
sOCiAL WELFARE iDENTiTy CARD
OR A CONCERT TiCkET
… and in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Most visitors to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
probably experience a sense of awe and respect when they
enter the time-honoured museums with their highly prized
and world famous works of art – a sensation they share
with visitors in previous centuries, too. It is a pity, however,
if this awe holds them back from visiting the museums at
all. New ideas are constantly needed to encourage “untypical
visitors” to develop a taste for art. One barrier holding
people back may be the high cost of admission. Therefore,
between Christmas 2008 and February 2009 the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden, in association with the Saxon
State Ministry for Science and Art, granted free admission
to the museums for all social welfare benefit recipients
and residents of retirement homes and children’s homes.
Probably the most unusual project of 2008 for the encouragement
of new groups of visitors was the cooperation
with the rock groups R.E.M., “Die Fantastischen Vier” and
Sigur Rós, which was initiated by the Director of Adminis-
Polish school exchange students during a workshop
tration, Dirk Burghardt. All concert ticket holders could
visit the Kunstsammlungen museums free of charge. The
response to this offer was enthusiastic: approximately
1,000 music fans took up the invitation (not to mention
the musicians, who also took the opportunity of visiting
the Residenzschloss). It was remarkable that the interest
in an additional visit to a museum varied from one concert
to another – why this was the case is a matter for speculation
…
mUsEUm EDUCATiON: mEThODiCAL –
DiDACTiC AND PRACTiCAL – CREATiVE
The diversity of the world-famous collections and the
broad spectrum of themes covered in the many special
exhibitions each year mean that the Museum Education
service has to provide a wide-ranging programme of
events. The Museum Education service acts as a mediator
for highly varied groups of museum visitors of different
ages. Through the use of special methodological and didactic
approaches, complicated and complex subject-matter
is made accessible and is compacted or expanded as
necessary. Programmes aimed at particular target groups
add to the visitors’ enjoyment of art, turning their time at
the exhibition into a special experience.
During the “China Year” the Museum Education service
faced a particular challenge. Since few visitors have direct
experience of China, the events offered by the Museum
Education service – which are increasingly of a practical