Is it legitimate which section of cultural reality museums show us? When and how does the present enter the museum? And how is the aura of originals actually created? "Openly asked! What exhibitions don't talk about otherwise" - this is the title of a student exhibition that focuses on the "museum phenomenon" itself.
Nine students from the "Museum and Exhibition" Master's programme at the university will be shedding light on current debates in the field and offering a glimpse behind the scenes of the museum as an institution until 29 April. Admission is free. The official partner of the show in the bau_werk Halle (Pferdemarkt 8a) is the Oldenburg City Museum.
"We want to invite people to think productively and critically about the established medium of 'exhibitions'," say Carina Blum and Inga Müller, two of the exhibition organisers. Their aim is to "focus on what is otherwise not perceived, bring into the exhibition space what happens behind the scenes - and question what has become a matter of course".
In addition to several public tours, they also offer guided tours for school classes or student groups by prior arrangement. They are also organising a discussion round on Friday, 22 April at 4.30 p.m. at the Oldenburger Klub Polyester (Am Stadtmuseum 15). Berlin curator Dr Daniel Tyradellis, Oldenburg art historian Dr Wiebke Trunk and Prof. Dr Monika Flacke, Head of Collections at the German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin, will discuss the topic "Museums: Overwhelmed and underestimated?".
The show "Offen gefragt!" is intended to examine the creative means of museums and exhibitions as well as the fast pace of museum projects and concepts. It also looks at the organisation of museum collections and the special features of original exhibits.
The students also look at provenance research, for example the question of whether all objects in museum collections also belong to the museums. And they shed light on canon formation, which they believe is increasingly determined by supply and demand in art, and ask: "In view of the fast pace of life and global, transcultural networking, is it even possible to speak of a representative 'cultural heritage'?"
The themes of the exhibition also include sitting in the museum - as well as the representation of the present there: which objects flow into museum collections in order to represent today's social reality for future generations? Last but not least, the exhibition takes up a debate about the concept of culture: it contrasts the image of the world as a mosaic of different "cultures" conveyed in many museums with the fact that ideas, things and people move around the world today.
