Partial opening in spring 2022
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In spring 2022, the museum will be inviting visitors to the opening of the first section of our redesigned exhibition REINVENTING GRASSI. SKD. 2021 was an eventful year full of discussions, debates and events around ethnological collections. In the first section of the exhibition, visitors gain insights into the museum’s colonial history and get to know some of the participants and networks that brought large parts of the ethnological collections to Saxony.
- Exhibition Site GRASSI Museum Leipzig
- Opening Hours daily 10—18, Monday closed
- Admission Fees admission free
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In an artistic photographic piece, Anja Nitz deals with the museum’s collection depot. Furthermore, the museum`s history is confronted by activist approaches concerning the questions of restitution. Thus, the artist collective PARA dedicates itself to a story almost forgotten in Leipzig: Hans Meyer’s abduction of the peak of Kilimanjaro and the question of how it might possibly be returned to Tanzania. Hans Meyer and the so-called Benin Bronzes, which he acquired and were previously stolen by the British, are also examined in greater detail. The Bronzes themselves will not be on display in the exhibition for the time being. Instead, different perspectives on ownerships and restitution are discussed. In addition, the museum presents a visual interpretation of this theme by the artist Emeka Ogboh.
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Museum Cabinets: KÜHNSCHERF Showcases
REINVENTING GRASSI.SKD’s vision for the future is also a staging of an architectural and museum-historical heritage. This includes the restoration of so-called “museum cabinets” by August Kühnscherf & Söhne. Between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, August Kühnscherf & Söhne manufactured showcases for more than 200 museums and were thus the world leaders in museum furnishing.
Due to their size and large glass surfaces, the showcases offered the exhibited objects much security from dust and insects for the first time. A large part of the Kühnscherf showcases of the GRASSI Museum of Ethnology were destroyed during the Second World War. Preserved showcases will henceforth be restored and will serve as an historical mirror of the museum’s history between presentation, representation, appropriation and current debates about the origins of the objects.
