MARKK ART IN THE CITY & ONLINE
by Brenda Benthien
The Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt , otherwise known as MARKK , held its yearly press conference on January 19 . A theme running through the presentation was the aspiration of modern museums — even “ ethnographic ” ones like MARKK — to rethink exhibit presentations and to experiment with fresh formats for a contemporary audience .
Museum director Dr . Barbara Plankensteiner and Chief Financial Officer Marc von Itter were delighted to let the local press know that the museum has secured € 123 million for building modernization . Construction will begin after a competition to determine which architectural team best suits the project . MARKK had about 50,000 visitors in 2022 and , once construction is completed , expects to be back to the 80,000 to 90,000 it had prior to the pandemic . The goal is to make the 100-year-old building with its many stairs more visitor-friendly .
PHOTO BY PAUL SCHIMWEG © MARKK
A hallmark of Dr . Plankensteiner ’ s work has been her development of the online platform “ Digital Benin ” in collaboration with international museums . The platform lists 131 institutions from twenty countries that hold cultural heritage objects from Benin in their collections . This new online platform allows viewers to inform themselves about the characteristics , location , and origin of more than 5,000 African artworks . Following the April 2021 decision by German museum experts to return the Benin bronzes in their holdings , Dr . Plankensteiner was called on to work with the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation , Hermann Parzinger , to coordinate the return process with the twenty German museums involved . She traveled to Nigeria in 2022 with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Culture Minister Claudia Roth , where they met with members of the foreign ministry in Abuja to begin the return of looted objects .
MARKK hopes to continue its partnership with the RESOLVE Collective , a Londonbased interdisciplinary design group that combines architecture , engineering , technology , and art to address social challenges . In November , the group teamed up with MARKK in a workshop in Hamburg to co-design the Water Messages exhibition that opened on February 25 . The exhibition tells water stories from different cultures : Incorporating dialogue with contemporary artists from places as widespread as the Amazon and northern Europe , it is meant to prompt viewers to think about water and climate protection on a global scale .
54 HAMBURG HAPPENINGS