Closing Questions: Marion Ackermann's final days in Düsseldorf – with an invitation to engage in dialogue

On November 1, 2016, Marion Ackermann – the current Director of the Kunstsammlung – took up a new post as General Director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (State Art Collections) in Dresden. During the final days prior to her departure from Düsseldorf, Ackermann engaged in a retrospect of her nearly 8 years as Director of the Kunstsammlung. Memories of countless discussions with museum visitors, friends, followers provided her with productive impulses for reflection: In light of current sociopolitical developments, what do theaters do better than museums? What should up-to-date copyright laws look like in the digital age? What would the museum visitors of tomorrow like to see in these institutions?

During her time in Düsseldorf, Marion Ackermann was able to resolve numerous questions pertaining to everyday museum life – not least of all through dialogue. But a few "loose ends" remain. We invited her to draw up a balance sheet together with the art-loving public. In the morning, this took the form of a guided tour, entitled "My Phantasies," through the presentation of the collection of the K21; taking place in the afternoon was an open discussion at the Lokal Lieshout.

Here in the online magazine #32, we would like to summarize and document some of the suggestions and stimuli that were discussed at both of these stations in a final "note" for Marion Ackermann. Meanwhile, some questions remain.

First station, morning: guided tour for the public

Her final day in Düsseldorf begins with a guided tour: as a token of her gratitude, 25 winners – "representatives of all of the museum's visitors," as Marion Ackermann says with a smile – are invited to join her for a guided tour, entitled "My Phantasies,"  through the permanent collection of the K21. With notable attentiveness, and accompanied by numerous questions, the group spends more than two hours with the departing Director in the lower level of the K21. One of the questions that pervades the morning: In these times of increasingly scarce resources, and at the same time, inflationary prices on the art market, how are purchases and new acquisitions still possible for an art museum? How are choices to be made? How to arrive at decisions concerning artworks and priorities?

The tour leads past works that entered the collection in the context of temporary exhibitions, and past others that were created especially for the museum, an example being Rosemarie Trockel's contribution to a sculpture exhibition in 2013, or the third part of Wael Shawky's "Cabaret Crusades" series, produced in 2014. Associated with purchases, almost invariably, are revealing anecdotes and a lively exchange of ideas with the artists. Other works entered the collection through either planned or unexpected gifts, an example being a work by Paul Klee that was donated by a private individual. Ultimately, numerous purchases and acquisitions are possibly only through the heroic support of sponsors, among them the Society of Friends of the Kunstsammlung and the Stiftung für Junge Kunst e.V., which made it possible to purchase a work by the young artist Pauline M’barek.

Again and again during the guided tour, questions revolve around individual works and the stories behind their acquisitions. Beginning at 1 PM, however, the conversation is transformed into an open-ended experiment...

 
An open space for discussion: #FragenZumSchluss (#Closing Questions) at the Lokal Lieshout

We have issued an invitation to take part in the action #FragenZumSchluss (#Closing Questions): only the basic parameters are fixed. From 1 PM to 3 PM, we will be sitting together with Marion Ackermann at the Lokal Lieshout and engaging in a discussion – in analog mode in space, digitally online. There is some initial uncertainty about who might join us, and what kinds of questions will come under consideration.

In the end, a mixed group of interested individuals assembles itself around the table: engaging in conversation with Marion Ackermann are a young art historian, a former architect, a journalist, a former cultural policymaker, and others, including museum visitors who happen to be passing. Taking part as well are the voices of Internet users who saw the discussion announced online, and have decided to submit questions. This unusual constellation provides us with an opportunity to explore a strikingly heterogeneous set of questions. Participants acquire insights into the everyday activities of a museum director, while at the same time addressing the big questions confronting art museums today.

Based on her experiences in Düsseldorf, but also on her plans for Dresden, Marion Ackermann attempts to shed light on what it means to direct a museum, and to develop a vision for a major cultural institution. On the one hand, it is necessary to address the peculiar characteristics of the individual institution. For many years, the focus of the Kunstsammlung was on its permanent collection. Other strategic objectives were formulated in relation to this constant factor, among them enhanced support for working artists and for contemporary art production. During Ackermann's tenure, for example, the Grabbehalle of the K20 became the shooting location for a film by the Egyptian artist Wael Shawky.

These strategic objectives are specially crucial in an era when museum directors change posts far more frequently than was the case earlier. The capacity of directors to make autonomous decisions and to implement their visions is confronted by critical questions as well when it comes to museum financing. What kind of admission prices should visitors expected to pay, and does decision-making in this area enjoy far more room to maneuver than is present when weighing other types of financing options?

Such concrete cultural political questions, fielded now by Ackermann, are supplemented by a number of major topics museums find themselves obliged to address both nationally and internationally with at least equal intensity: dealt with during this afternoon chat in particular are problems that remain unresolved at present. Today as earlier, we are confronted with the question – and hardly only in Düsseldorf – of how museum might interest a broader public in exhibitions and collections: here, the silver bullet is clearly early cultural education, which makes it possible to dismantle psychological barriers against the museum as an institution from the very beginning. But here, museums must insure that such educational offerings are shaped using the art as a resource, and are not split off from the museum's core activities in the form of programming for children.

Playing a decisive role in considering this question as well is the contextualization of the museum in relation to its location: Can and should a museum participate to an enhanced degree in interdisciplinary projects that foster exchange between the arts and their recipients? What are the prerequisites for staging a performance of a theater piece in the spaces of the Kunstsammlung? Achieving such an intersection appears more difficult to implement than one might assume. Nonetheless, it remains an important concept, especially when it comes to the sociopolitical capacities and tasks facing cultural institutions in the context of day-to-day activities.

Perhaps, however, perspectives of other parts of the world also point toward alternative models for the working methods of museums. Strongly shaped by Humboldian educational ideals, museums in Germany are repositories of a canon of knowledge that is conveyed unidirectionally – which is to say from the institution to the visitor. "We" have never known things any other way – and yet, it would doubtless prove far more rewarding and pragmatic to integrate visitor participation in decision-making processes, even to the point of taking it as a source of inspiration.

Also unresolved with regard to the development of museum collections is the crucial question of the significance of Net Art, to which a follower on Twitter called our attention: How can an institution like the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen deal with art that is emerging "brand new"? And how should we position ourselves within the larger network of museums, with their divergent foci?

Needless to say, not all of these questions are resolved this afternoon. Standing in the foreground is the certain knowledge that the future harbors numerous and challenging tasks for museums. Not least important among these is the following question, with which we now close:

What is so special about the museum?

In the evening: bidding farewell

After two hours, inspired by this inquisitive and meandering afternoon discussion, Marion Ackermann takes her leave from the Lokal Lieshout and makes her way to her final appointment, an evening farewell ceremony. The Society of Friends of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, intimately associated with the museum for decades through their patronage, have issued an invitation to this event, held at the K20.

Here as well, countless questions are posed, and a few, perhaps, even answered. The event, attended by circa 400 invited guests, has a private and personal character – a fitting close to our coverage of Marion Ackermann's final day in Düsseldorf.

The team of #32 conveys our gratitude to our departing director for her numerous creative and imaginative contributions to this online magazine, whose conception she shaped in decisive ways, and whose themes and ideas she consistently followed with great attentiveness. We hope to see you in Düsseldorf again very soon, dear Marion Ackermann!

Edited by: Alissa Krusch, Jan-Marcel Müller
Digital Communications, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen