The German Historical Museum opened an exhibition of the Humboldt brothers. These are historically-located critical in their time.
travel diaries of Alexander von Humboldt, to be seen in the DHM photo: Carola Seifert/Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin/bpk
In the public consciousness, the brothers Humboldt as something of the perfect German hero. Wilhelm, the Prussian Minister of education, and today the namesake of the Humboldt-University, stands for the Ideal of education as a program of continuous improvement of the personality, Alexander, the world traveller and naturalist, for the unbiased pursuit of scientific knowledge.
Fresh-the heroes of history was fueled by the Humboldt Forum, which sought to back – startled by the discussion of the legitimacy of his ethnological objects, with the idealization of his namesake in the right light.
This rapturous image of this Thursday in the German Historical Museum the exhibition “Wilhelm and Alexander Humboldt” open to question. Although you’ve discovered when Researching some of the “relics” – such as the Desk of Alexander, his glasses, his death-mask, “and we would have to write a more heroic story,” says curator Bénédicte Savoy, an art historian at the TU and probably the most famous critic of the Humboldt forum.
Exactly, you didn’t mean to, but her and her colleague, David Blankenstein it went to a historical-critical anchoring of the brethren in their time – to visit the interior to give a feel for the time around 1800, but also to make the contradictions in the personalities and life of the Humboldt brothers to understand.
The exhibition area of about 1,000 square meters in the basement of the PEI building includes 350 objects, many on loan from the whole of Europe, including the Vatican collections, the Louvre, the British Museum and Windsor Castle.
“Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt” at the German Historical Museum, 21. November 2019 up to 19. April 2020, daily 10 to 18 clock, Thursdays until 20 PM. Free up to 18 years, day ticket 8 Euro, reduced 4.
The exhibition is barrierre-free and including: communications stations that appeal to each of at least two senses, in addition to a tactile floor guidance system, Gebädensprachvideos, Ausstellungstexcten in Braille and easy language part of the exhibition design.
There is a catalogue for the exhibition in the German language, 296 pages, 28 Euro.
In the varied accompanying programme there are, among other things, a tour with the curators Bénédicte Savoy and David Blankenstein (27.11., 18:30 PM, the PEI building). More: www.dhm.de
<p Kralbet xmlns=”” class=”article odd”> goes in front of The exhibition, therefore, in large Parts, not biographically, but on the basis of key themes. In the Chapter “Open relationships”, for example, is – drawings, letters, busts, and paintings – the Berlin-based world of the literary and philosophical Salons, in which the two young men ran and Wilhelm made the first amorous experiences (Alexander, nothing is known; today, it is believed that he was gay). “It was also important for us to show that the wise, the most advanced circuits in this time, the Jewish were,” says Savoy – which has not been held, Wilhelm, later, to distance himself “from his Jewish friends,” and to Express anti-Semitic.
In the thematic block “the expansion of the thinking zone” deals with the travels of the brothers, perhaps on the basis of Alexander’s Travel diaries. For Wilhelm’s lesser known trip to Europe is found a picture of his family, the Savoy and her Co-curator in a Museum in the Basque country, and in a Cacolet, a Basque saddle with two Seats, a travel utensil of the time.
these trips, especially Alexander, not only from curiosity were driven, as today, often, evidence showed many of the exhibits: samples of sand of gold, for example, as the Savoy, that “to collect is not easy to gather,” but also to explore – and exploit. Also one of Alexander-painted map of the world, the illustrated metal flows, demonstrated why he meant later, and then quite positive – as the “father of German colonialism” was referred to.
The well-being and explore some of the most collectible pieces of Alexander is not, incidentally, to see the Atures skull, the Alexander at the Orinoco river from a cave, robbed – in the full awareness of the injustice that he did to the “Indians” so. tattdessen the visitor could read a letter from Humboldt to his teacher, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, for his anthropological studies, he took the skull. (*) These “desecrated head,” we don’t want to give the Savoy “But we wanted to talk about the story.”
(*) In a first detection here falsely, it’ll be shown a drawing of the skull.
