Collecting, exhibiting and preserving in museums of applied arts in the nineteenth century

  • Conference languages: German, English
  • Target group: Young scholars and graduates of all disciplines in the humanities, above all art history as well as conservation-restoration and museum studies.

In recent times research concerning the history of collections and of collecting, and, more specifically, collecting strategies of nineteenth-century institutions has enjoyed widespread popularity. Research projects are conducted by universities as well as museums and focus on different types of institutions. Museums of applied arts, certainly the most innovative kind of museum in the nineteenth century, have, however, been largely neglected so far. “Die deutschen Kunstgewerbemuseen im 19. Jahrhundert”, published by Barbara Mundt in 1974, has been the last comprehensive study on the history of museums of applied arts. She presented a detailed overview of the founding period and specified the collecting profiles of these institutions. Questions concerning practices of object handling and long-term developments in collecting, exhibiting and preserving strategies were, however, hardly discussed.

Important as it may be to consider the foundation programmes of collecting institutions in a more general view, one must keep in mind that museum practices developed gradually and individually – the institutions are, consequently, heterogeneous (Crimp 1996). This, in turn, requires an approach to museum history that does not confine itself to locally defined phenomena, but rather aims at a transnational perspective (Meyer/Savoy 2014). This approach seems particularly appropriate in the case of museums of applied arts, as their dissemination in the second half of the nineteenth century may be described as a transnational process.

The colloquium „Collecting, Exhibiting and Preserving in Museums for the Applied Arts in the Nineteenth Century“ aims at bringing together young scholars from various disciplines and at stimulating an international exchange regarding questions and methods of museum research. In particular, we would like to focus on the strategies and practices of handling, collecting, presenting and preserving objects in museums of applied arts in the nineteenth century. As we are interested in contextualizing museums of applied arts, participants concentrating on other types of museums are also welcome.

We invite young researchers to submit paper proposal of no more of 300 words (duration: no more than 25 minutes) and a short cv in German or English.

Proposals should be submitted to: nora.rudolf[at]ikg.unibe.ch

Travel and accommodation costs of the speakers will be reimbursed. We would like to thank the Nachwuchsförderungs-Projektpool/Universität Bern for their financial support.

Concept and organisation:

  • Daniela C. Maier, M.A. (Doctoral candidate, Institute of Art History, University of Bern and Fellow of the doctoral program Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, Walter Benjamin Kolleg, University of Bern),
  • Nora Rudolf, M.A. (Doctoral candidate and fellow of the Graduate School of the Arts, University of Bern)