Museum five continents

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Museum Five Continents, May 2017

The Museum of Five Continents is the former State Museum of Ethnology on Maximilianstrasse in Munich . It was founded in 1862 as the first ethnological museum in Germany with the name Königlich Ethnographische Sammlung, called the Museum für Völkerkunde since 1917 and renamed the Museum Five Continents on September 9, 2014. A branch was located in the Oettingen residential palace until the end of 2017 .

The museum's collection contains over 160,000 works of art from non-European peoples , 135,000 photographs and a specialist library with over 100,000 books . The collections of the House of Wittelsbach formed a historical basis. The permanent exhibitions and themed special exhibitions show similarities and differences between the various cultures .

Museum name

The first ethnological museum in Germany changed its name several times in the course of its history:

  • 1862–1912: Royal Ethnographic Collection
  • 1912–1917: Royal Ethnographic Museum
  • 1917–1954: Museum of Ethnology
  • 1954–2014: State Museum of Ethnology
  • since autumn 2014: Museum Five Continents

History of the museum

In 1835 the Würzburg doctor and naturalist Philipp von Siebold , who had lived in Japan from 1823 to 1830, sent a letter with a detailed sketch to King Ludwig I of Bavaria. In it he explained his proposal to found an ethnological museum in Munich. Siebold thus proved to be a pioneer of a development in Europe that led to the founding of numerous ethnological museums, especially in the second half of the 19th century. The development of ethnology as a scientific discipline went hand in hand with this. Siebold's plan was finally implemented in 1862: Ludwig's son Maximilian II wanted, as a committed sponsor of science and art, to make Munich a leading center in German-speaking countries. In the course of this, he decided to found an ethnological museum in the Bavarian capital, which was committed to scientific research from the start. As early as 1820, at the instigation of the House of Wittelsbach, the first ethnological collections had come to Munich, the so-called “Transatlantic Collections” from research trips to Brazil, the South Seas and Russian America. The museum was initially housed in the gallery building in the Hofgartenarkaden, but this turned out to be increasingly unsuitable. In 1925/26, the company moved to the current building on Maximilianstrasse.

Directors

building

Museum Five Continents with new lettering above the portal
Museum Five Continents with new lettering above the portal

The museum building was built by Eduard Riedel from 1859 to 1865 as the Bavarian National Museum , the collections of which have been housed in a new museum building on Prinzregentenstrasse since 1900 , as the building soon proved to be too small despite its thirty-eight halls. The client was King Maximilian II , on whose initiative Maximilianstrasse was built. From 1906 to 1925 the building served the Deutsches Museum as the first, provisional exhibition building. The Völkerkundemuseum has been located in the house on Maximilianstrasse since 1926 .

After the client had decided on the building site at this point, the new building of the deaf-and-dumb domicile, which had grown to a shell in 1858, had to be demolished at the donor's expense. The architecture of the two-storey monumental building with three-storey central and corner projections was influenced by the English Perpendicular Style . The main front is 147 meters long and consists of five blocks with continuous arcades and 25 axes with an ornate eaves. The entrance area is equipped with a loggia with nine axes. According to the original dedication of the building, historical frescoes with scenes from the Bavarian past decorate some rooms on the first floor. The royal inscription "To honor and example my people", affixed in capital letters under the roof, also refers to the history of the building of the National Museum.

Collection focus

In addition to the works of art and everyday objects, the collection also contains more than 135,000 image documents in the form of glass plates, paper prints, slides and photo albums. The earliest recordings are from 1870. The outstanding groups of works include recordings of expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century.

African art

View of the Africa exhibition at the Five Continents Museum
View of the permanent Africa exhibition of the Five Continents Museum, which was redesigned in autumn 2016

Africa collection and permanent Africa exhibition "Living traditions, creative present. Art from Africa": The Africa collection includes around 40,000 everyday, ritual and art objects from countries and regions south of the Sahara and from people living in this desert such as the Tuareg. The Africa Collection also includes objects from Madagascar, while objects from North Africa in the museum are assigned to the Orient Collection. The collection includes plastic art with masks and figures , sculptures , bronzes and ivory carvings , weapons as well as silver handicrafts and body jewelry.

The oldest holdings in the collection come from the Kunstkammer of the Wittelsbach rulers and include ivory carvings from the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the museum was founded in 1862, the collection has been expanded through donations and purchases from numerous travelers, researchers, colonial officials and missionaries, ethnographic and art dealers such as B. Max Buchner (1885), Friedl Martin (1893), Hugo Deininger (1905 and 1913), Ludwig Bretschneider (especially 1950s to 1980s) and the Umlauff company (1926 and 1932).

Several key areas of the collection emerged, e. B. Beadwork from southern Africa, ceramic and wickerwork as well as Christian folk painting from Ethiopia. An extensive collection of everyday objects from various ethnic groups in Tanzania comes from the research trip of the Africanist and museum employee Meinulf Küsters in 1927/28. The carvings of the Fang (Cameroon / Gabon) and Luba (Dem. Rep. Congo), Central African power figures as well as sculptures of the Yoruba (Nigeria / Republic of Benin), including two veranda posts by the famous carver Olowe von Ise (d. 1938 ), represent.

The field of contemporary art is also a focus of the collection. Works by important contemporary artists who live in Africa or in the diaspora and operate in a globalized art world are continuously acquired. Examples are Sokari Douglas Camp (Nigeria / Great Britain), Ransome Stanley (Germany), Romouald Hàzoume (Republic of Benin), Pieter Hugo (South Africa), Kofi Setordji (Ghana) and El Loko (Germany / Togo). As part of the new design collection, the Africa collection contains works by Western designers who were inspired by African models, for example the Italian Matteo Thun or the Americans Charles and Ray Eames.

The permanent exhibition "Living Traditions, Creative Present. Art from Africa" ​​presents impressive examples of traditional art from Africa south of the Sahara. The spectrum ranges from court bronzes from the kingdom of Benin, powerful figures from the Congo region and centuries-old filigree ivory carvings from West Africa to ancestral sculptures and masks from Mali to Tanzania.

The “ Blauer Reiter ” artists Franz Marc and Wassili Kandinsky sought and found inspiration for their own work in the Munich Africa Collection.

A special focus of the exhibition are works by internationally important contemporary artists such as Romuald Hazoumé, El Loko, Pieter Hugo and Ransome Stanley. New on display are a coffin in the shape of a sports shoe by the Ghanaian artist Paa Joe, as well as significant examples of western design history inspired by African models, such as the “Tam Tam” stool by Matteo Thun and the “ABC stools” by Charles and Ray Eames.

The interactive work of art “La Source - The Talking Shoe” by the Togolese diaspora artist Amouzou Glikpa is particularly popular.

American art

The collection includes art and material culture from the indigenous societies of America.

  • North America - Collection and permanent exhibition "Sun dance and bison hunt. Indians of North America": The North America collection includes holdings from the First Nations from Canada and the Native Americans and American Indians from the United States of America. In addition, there are objects of the Inuit and other ethnic groups from the Arctic and Greenland, including the oldest surviving kayak in the world from 1577. The kayak probably came to Holland during a trip from the subarctic. The sealskin ship was then given to Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria for exhibition purposes. The complete collection consists of around 5000 objects, including leather clothing, feather headdresses and masks. The oldest, around 1000 arrow and lance heads, date from pre-Columbian times. The majority of the collection can be dated from the end of the 19th century to the present day, including screen prints by Native American artists on the northwest coast and soapstone carvings by the Inuit. Important collections were entrusted to our house by Princess Therese von Bayern, Otto Geist, Elk Eber, Vera Laski, Lorne Balshine and the Larink and Walk couples. Artful everyday objects show the inventiveness and the broad spectrum of human adaptation of their creators to their respective environment: from the arctic hunters in the north and the fishermen of the northwest coast to the cattle breeders (Navaho) and farmers (Hopi, Zuñi) in the southwest to the bison hunters of the prairie up to the former corn growers in the east (Iroquois). The permanent exhibition "Sun dance and bison hunting. Indians of North America" ​​shows the diversity of Indian North America and impressively demonstrates the inventiveness and aesthetic feeling of its creators. Examples of this are the famous raven masks of the Kwakiutl from the northwest coast, elaborate beadwork by the Sioux from the Plains or the hand-flattering soapstone figures of the Eskimo. Artists of the Classical Modern were already influenced by the Kachina figures of the Hopi in Southwest North America.

Islamic art

Islamic Orient - The Orient Collection comprises around 20,000 objects of material culture from Islamic societies and the Christian and Jewish groups living with them from Southeast Europe, North Africa, West Asia and Central and Southwest Asia. It also contains pre-Islamic archaeological objects from ancient southern Arabia and from Luristan in western Iran as well as ethnographics from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, e.g. B. from the Hindu Kush (Nuristan collection).

The ethnographic collections, which are influenced by Islam, mainly contain jewelery from Yemen ( Werner Daum Collection ) and Afghanistan (Kurt and Ursula Rossmanith Collection) as well as everyday objects and devotional objects from the Caucasus, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia (Collections Gebrüder Schlagintweit , Lucian Scherman , Jürgen Wasim Frembgen , Gottfried Merzbacher , Oskar Niedermayer , Winifred Blackman and Adolf Dirr ). This also includes a collection of 180 Turkish shadow play figures and over 200 Pakistani Sufi posters.

The more than 1300 carpets and carpet fragments form a focus of the collection that is unique in Europe.

Masterpieces of Islamic art from Turkey, the Middle East, Iran, Iraq and Mughal India are evidence of the abundance of artistic creativity. In addition to architectural elements and Persian and Mughal book illustrations (Emil and Lilli Preetorius Collection), for example, there is a silver-inlaid brass plate that was made in the 13th century for Badr ad-Din Lulu , the ruler of Mosul, Iraq, and a bronze pouring vessel in the shape of a deer from the Egyptian Fatimid period (10th / 11th century), called.

The collection of contemporary art includes works by artists such as B. Lalla Essaydi (Morocco / USA), Hojat Amani, Aneh Mohammad Tatari, Maryam Salour, Kamran Sharif, Homayoun Salimi (Iran / USA / France) and Lulwah Al Homoud (Saudi Arabia / Great Britain / United Arab Emirates), Maryam Rastghalam (Iran / Germany), Elisabeth Rössler (Germany) or Hassan Massoudy (Iraq).

View into the Buddha Hall of the Five Continents Museum
View into the Buddha Hall of the Five Continents Museum

Asian collection

Art of Australia and the South Pacific

Oceania : The exhibits mainly show figures of gods and art objects, but also art objects that symbolize fishing and the connection to the ancestors through the animal world. The exhibits include:

Special exhibitions

  • Amazonian Indians (1960)
  • Kings in africa. Power and Splendor of the God-Kings (2002) [Zweigmuseum Oettingen i. Bavaria]
  • Genocide Monument - The wounds of memory. 10 years after the genocide in Rwanda. Sculpture installation by Kofi Setordji (January 25 - March 7, 2004)
  • Silent post. An installation by Angelika Böck and mask portraits by Hans Himmelträger (2004)
  • Rostock Ritz - A search for traces in Namibia. Photos from today's Namibia by Eva Leitolf (2005)
  • Imbenge Dreamhouse. A telephone wire project with artists from South Africa, Europe and Asia (2005)
  • Black gods in exile. Pierre Verger in Africa and Brazil (2006)
  • TierWelten - animals in the religions of distant cultures (2007) [Zweigmuseum Oettingen i. Bay.]
  • A strong desire to see the world - field research in the Museum für Völkerkunde Munich - exhibition project by Isi Kunath (2010)
  • Last unction Niger Delta. The Drama of Oil Production in Contemporary Photographs (March 17 - September 16, 2012)
  • From Samoa with Love? Samoa Völkerschauen in the German Empire. A search for clues (January 31 - November 30, 2014)
  • INVISIBLE. Women Surviving Acid (June 6, 2014 - January 11, 2015)
  • Myanmar. About pagodas, longyis and nat spirits (extended until April 3, 2016)
  • Daughters of the steppe - sons of the wind. Turkmen gold and silver (until January 31, 2016)
  • Colours. Art. Indians. The Munich impressionist Julius Seyler at Blackfeet (November 13, 2015 - April 3, 2016)
  • Ngaanyatjarra Lands - Aboriginal Art from Western Australia (April 15 - June 5, 2016)
  • Boxing Cuba. Tribute to a Sport (May 13 - September 18, 2016)
  • Últimos Testigos. The last Mayan rebellion in Yucatán. Photographs by Serge Barbeau (July 1, 2016 - January 29, 2017)
  • Shaded Memories. The Shadow Over Cambodia (February 17th - September 17th 2017)
  • From the land of the snow lion. Treasures from Tibet 15. – 20. Century (December 9, 2016 - January 28, 2018)
  • Kids behind the Camera - A project by Marie Köhler with children from Burkina Faso and Rwanda (October 13, 2017 - January 7, 2018)
  • Don't forget to sing! Aboriginal Art from the Western APY Lands (January 19 - February 25, 2018)
  • Daughters of Life - Photographs by Angèle Etoundi Essamba (March 23 - July 1, 2018)
  • Mirror images. Māori art and helmets Heine's view of New Zealand (October 12, 2018 - April 28, 2019)
  • Shadow. Light. Structure. Paper installations by Koji Shibazaki (April 5, 2019 - September 22, 2019)
  • Collecting Japan. Philipp Franz von Siebold's vision of the Far East (October 11, 2019 - September 13, 2020)
  • Tikimania. Bernd Zimmer, the Marquesas Islands and the European dream of the South Seas (July 10, 2020 - February 28, 2021)

Web links

Commons : State Museum for Ethnology Munich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. A new name for old cultures - the Völkerkundemuseum is now called "Five Continents" , tz, September 9, 2014
  2. ^ Claudius Müller (editor): 400 years of collecting and traveling by the Wittelsbachers. Non-European cultures . Hirmer, Munich 1980, pp. 11-33.
  3. Dr. Uta Werlich is the new director of the Five Continents Museum
  4. a b Maria Kecskési: African Masterpieces and Selected Works from Munich: The State Museum of Ethnology . Center for African Art, 1987.
  5. ^ Andreas Lommel, Otto Zerries: Old American Art, Mexico-Peru: Catalog for the exhibition of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich . State Museum of Ethnology, Munich 1977.
  6. Helmut Schindler, Heiko Prümers: Farmers and cavalry warriors: the Mapuche Indians in the south of America . Hirmer, Munich 1990.
  7. Orient Collection | Museum five continents. Retrieved July 9, 2020 .
  8. Andreas Lommel (ed.): Indians from the Amazon. Arts and crafts of the Indians of tropical South America . State Museum of Ethnology, Munich 1960.

Coordinates: 48 ° 8 '15.3 "  N , 11 ° 35' 8.5"  E