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Gold, music and UFOs: spring art exhibitions in Berlin

In the last week of April and the first week of May, the Berlin State Museums present an interesting group of art exhibitions on a wide variety of themes.

Source: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · Image: depiction of a fantastic airship from the wedding feast of Emperor Leopold I, illustration from: Sieg-Streit deß Lufft und Wassers Freuden-Fest, Vienna, 1667, © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

From 28 April to October 1, 2023, the Schloss Köpenick, Kunstgewerbemuseum presents “Electrifying! Electroformed Copies of Artistic Goldwork,” a selection of some 150 electroformed sculptures from its own holdings. Over the past few years, they have undergone technical analysis and careful restoration. The objects in question are 19th-century replicas of important pieces in the history of goldwork. At that time, electroforming was as innovative as 3D printing is today. By way of an electro-chemical procedure, complex, three-dimensional gold objects were able to be reproduced, creating largely identical metal copies in an electrolytic bath, and in large production runs to boot. The direct comparison between original and copy brings to light both the commonalities and the differences between them. This exhibition looks at technical aspects, but also at aspects related to cultural history: the electroformed sculptures are a prime example of the enthusiasm for technology and the historical consciousness of the Industrial Age, and also played a central role in the educational models of Berlin’s Kunst-gewerbemuseum at its founding in 1867.

From 28 April to 2 July, 2023, the Museumsinsel Berlin, Pergamonmuseum presents an exhibition devoted to music and Indian courtly life. The book art collection of the Museum für Islamische Kunst is internationally renowned for its collection of Indian albums, comprising more than 450 individual sheets. Courtly and garden scenes featuring rulers and courtly ladies in splendid garb constitute an extremely popular motif in these works. Many of these scenes include depictions of musicians and their instruments, underscoring the fact that music was an indispensable accompaniment to courtly life. The exhibition explores the question of which occasions music was played on, and who played it. Not content with mere visual depictions of music, there will also be audio examples of classical Indian music for audiences to listen to.

Finally, from 5 May to 27 August 2023, the Kulturforum, Kunstbibliothek presents “A UFO in 1665. Investigating a Historical Sighting”. In April 1665, six fishermen witnessed an aerial battle in the skies above the Baltic Sea near Stralsund. As evening broke, a dark-grey disk appeared high above the city centre. With reference to contemporaneous visual and textual sources, this exhibition reconstructs the way this event was portrayed in the media over the years. From our historical distance, we can recognise certain paradigms and communications strategies that centuries later continue to determine the reporting on unexplained celestial phenomena. The recent reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs) released by the US military also form part of this cultural and media context. UFOs and human imagination seem to be inextricably linked with one another. This exhibition is the first of its kind to focus on this historical sighting, and is centred around books, drawings and printed matter from the Kunstbibliothek and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

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