2008 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Fan Di´an, Director of the National Art Museum
of China, Beijing, and Prof. Dr. Martin Roth in
the exhibition “Chinese Gardens for Living” at
the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Schloss Pillnitz
Eberhard Havekost, Trash 1, 2003,
Galerie Neue Meister (loan)/Gesellschaft
für moderne Kunst in Dresden e. V.
12 hind the exhibition plans – the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden do not arrange exhibitions to fit in with
major sporting events. However, the increased attention
that was paid to the Chinese people in general as a result
of the Olympic Games also sensitised the public to Chinese
art and culture and attracted visitors to the Dresden exhibitions.
They showed great interest in the highly varied
themes above and beyond the simple enjoyment of art.
The resonance resulting from the broad range of events
on offer alongside the exhibitions, including Tai Chi on the
Brühlsche Terrasse and the Tea Salon in the Lipsiusbau, the
children’s university and workshop events, detective and
film evenings, as well as readings and discussions, went
far beyond the mere appreciation of art.
Of course, such a “China Year” cannot reproduce the
euphoria of ‘chinoiserie’ in which August the Strong and
other Baroque rulers were caught up around three hundred
years ago. Nevertheless, the visitors to the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden were able to learn a great deal
about Chinese culture, both regarding its ancient traditions
and concerning modern developments in the arts and in
society, just as visitors to the National Art Museum of
China in Beijing were able to devote their attention to
German art.
In 2010 the China project of the museum associations
from Berlin, Dresden and Munich will bring about a further
high point in German-Chinese cooperation when a joint
exhibition of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the Bayerische
Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, is opened in the
revamped National Museum of China in Beijing. The Na-
View of the exhibition “Gerhard Richter” at the
National Art Museum of China, Beijing
tional Museum of China is located on Tiananmen Square
and is currently being modernised and expanded by the
German firm of architects von Gerkan, Marg & Partner
from Hamburg. When it reopens in 2010, it will be the
largest museum in the world.
Cultural exchange, bilateral exhibition projects, staff
exchanges among the museums, Chinese museum-goers
viewing German landscape paintings in Beijing and Germans
standing in front of the Imperial Throne of China in
Dresden’s Residenzschloss: all this fosters dialogue and
intercultural understanding. The patronage of State President
Hu Jintao and Federal President Horst Köhler underscores
the importance of this dialogue. When the German
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, visited
the exhibitions “Gerhard Richter. Bilder 1963 – 2007”
(Gerhard Richter. Paintings 1963 – 2007) and “Living Landscapes.
A Journey through German Art” in Beijing in the
company of his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, he said
with regard to the paintings and in view of the future
project at the National Museum of China in 2010: “We see
that cultural exchange is an expansion of horizons. And we
urgently need expanded horizons. We are living at a time
in which we can effortlessly reach every corner of the world,
either virtually or in real life. All too often, this virtual and
spatial accessibility give us a false impression of familiarity.
I would say that just because we can see more of the
world, this certainly does not mean that we also understand
it better! Rather, we should admit that we need new instruments
of measurement, including in the political sphere.
The cubits used by power blocs and the metres employed
for determining national interests are no longer sufficient!