Winckelmann. Modern Antiquity

We set out to cre­ate a (tem­po­rary) apart­ment in Weimar for Winck­el­mann for this exhi­bi­tion. It has become clas­si­cal in its own unique way: sub­tle, light, yet expres­sive scenog­ra­phy, with a clear line, guides vis­i­tors through Winck­el­man­n’s aes­thet­ic-anthro­po­log­i­cal cos­mos. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion has been paid to the writ­ten word, to writ­ing as Winck­el­man­n’s medi­um: the excel­lence of the graph­ics (pan­els) and the edu­ca­tion­al offer­ings with pro­ject­ed text and fine­ly craft­ed folios, placed next to the Apol­lo Belvedere or the tor­so, enable the inter­est­ed vis­i­tor to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly fol­low Winck­el­man­n’s text and observe the object described. While the scenog­ra­phy on the upper floor, in keep­ing with its clas­si­cal sub­ject mat­ter, is rather restrained, it presents a dif­fer­ent nar­ra­tive through the dif­fer­ent, col­or­ful spa­tial design of the indi­vid­ual chap­ters on the ground floor. The scenog­ra­phy accen­tu­ates the sub­tle cura­to­r­i­al nar­ra­tive threads, thus devel­op­ing the most­ly inter­re­lat­ed aspects by empha­siz­ing the intu­itive vis­i­tor guid­ance through the archi­tec­tur­al lines and rows. In each room, care is tak­en to per­fect­ly cap­ture the pro­por­tions, atmos­phere, and col­or of the sur­round­ing space. This restores the airi­ness and clas­si­cal beau­ty of the Neues Muse­um, which was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as a col­lec­tion of antiq­ui­ties. How­ev­er, ​“noble sim­plic­i­ty and qui­et grandeur” are not always the sole guid­ing prin­ci­ples of the scenog­ra­phy. Again and again, visu­al drama­ti­za­tion takes place at care­ful­ly placed cli­max­es: the cas­cade from Jakob Philipp Hack­ert’s famous paint­ing ​“Vil­la Albani in Rome” focus­es the vis­i­tor’s gaze on the tor­so of the Belvedere; fur­ther well-com­posed points of view allow vis­i­tors to dis­cov­er the inim­itable exhibits from one room to the next. The scenog­ra­phy thus becomes a medi­um for intu­itive­ly under­stand­ing Winck­el­man­n’s clas­si­cal world of thought.

A new hard­ware tech­nol­o­gy, the so-called ​“Space Play­er,” was also used. This lamp-like device is capa­ble of pro­ject­ing ani­mat­ed maps and short films onto the exhi­bi­tion wall with­out a black space. This tech­nol­o­gy was used when­ev­er the lat­est archae­o­log­i­cal research find­ings or expand­ed geo­graph­i­cal clas­si­fi­ca­tions need­ed to be presented.