If you find our opening image off-putting, you’re right: art history is full of abominations. And they’re certainly not right just because they come from a bygone era. It’s important we oppose the tastelessness art has left us over time by constantly (re)discussing it. And that’s precisely what Cologne’s museums do. Curators place works of art in new discourse contexts, thereby bringing a new perspective to the present. We took a look behind the scenes to find out more about their approaches. Here are three examples of controversial art in Cologne.
RAUTENSTRAUCH-JOEST
Oliver Lueb, Curator: “Australian Dog” was originally a photo from the early 20th century. It depicts the natural habitat of Central Australia as an “exotic world” and it had been in our archives for quite some time. The “Revisions” project awoke the picture from its slumber to give it a decolonised reinterpretation. Warlpiri artists from Central Australia worked with British artist Patrick Waterhouse to “revise” colonial pieces from the museum’s archives. One of the artists, Julie Nangala Robertson, recognised this dingo as her family’s totem – a kind of spiritual being. By covering the photo with her clan symbols and dot painting (typical of Central Australia), she transferred it back to its cultural context.
WALLRAF-RICHARTZ-MUSEUM
Anja K. Sevcik, Baroque Curator: The painting “Jupiter as a satyr with Antiope”, by Anthonis van Dyck, can be considered in the context of one of our past exhibitions entitled “Susanna – Images of a Woman from the Middle Ages to MeToo”. The mythological scene, in which the lustful father of the gods can be seen creeping up on the sleeping princess, is both beautiful to look at and disturbing – a rape will ensue. Van Dyck turns us, the observers, into voyeurs in an invitation to explore our own experiences and views. Finally, the painting also shows how ageless some problems are.
MUSEUM OF EAST ASIAN ART
Dr Petra Rösch, Deputy Director: This Chinese Buddhist stele is part of an exhibition entitled “Art in the limelight! – Alfred Salmony and the Collection of the Museum for East Asian Art Cologne during the Weimar Republic 1918–1933”. Salmony, the museum’s first deputy director, was committed to ensuring that East Asian and Chinese art enjoyed the same status as European art. Even today, many East Asian art collections can still be found in ethnological museums instead of in museums dedicated purely to art, such as Cologne’s Museum of East Asian Art.
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