EXHIBITION OPENINGS Tuesday, 22nd May, 7pm
OBJECT ATLAS – FIELDWORK IN THE MUSEUM
New hang of the expedition paintings and photographs of Alf Bayrle.
Welcome address by Prince Asfa-Wossen Asserate.
22nd May 2012, 7pm, Weltkulturen Museum, Schaumainkai 29, Frankfurt
Alf Bayrle, Fieldwork Drawing 1934-35 (Frobenius-Institut)
In the past, anthropologists undertook fieldwork expeditions to distant lands searching for new ways of understanding the world. It was common practice to invite an artist to document objects in situ before they were collected and brought back to museums.
In the 1930s, artist Alf Bayrle (1900 – 1982) was the official painter of this museum and its associated Institut für Kulturmorphologie at the University of Frankfurt. Bayrle accompanied anthropologists Leo Frobenius and Adolf E. Jensen on expeditions to Libya and Ethiopia. The presentation of Bayrle’s field drawings and photographs is exceptional. His work is shown for the first time in this exhibition together with the stone megaliths and wooden grave posts collected by the museum.
The new hang extends our knowledge of Bayrle’s work and demonstrates the value of artistic documentation as a part of the fieldwork experience. We invite you to undertake your own fieldwork in the museum and to acquire an in-depth understanding of Alf Bayrle’s drawings and methodology through guided tours provided by anthropologists and art-historians.
GREEN ROOM
Opening: 'Morocco Magic Modern Ceramics' - Exhibition curated by Shane Munro
Tuesday, 22nd May, 7.30 pm
Weltkulturen Labor, Schaumainkai 37, Frankfurt
Photo: Wolfgang Günzel
In March 2012, artist and curator Shane Munro travelled to Morocco on behalf of the Weltkulturen Museum. There he commissioned the workshop 'Morocco Magic' in Salé to produce a series of ceramics based on inventory cards from the archives of the Museum. These cards, which date back to the turn of the last century, feature watercolours of Moroccan objects that were subsequently destroyed in World War II. The new artworks are ‘ethnographic restorations’. The potters from ‘Morocco Magic’ have translated the original 2D drawings into 3D objects, resembling a children’s pop-up version of the archival cards.
In the Green Room, these ceramics are exhibited alongside a new set of museum inventory cards painted by Shane Munro. Here Munro represents the plates currently on sale at Morocco Magic’s shop in Salé. His ‘inventory cards’ feature the object with its price tag. No further information is provided. The watercolours are framed and mounted onto 'green screen' hand-woven cactus silk, purchased in Rabat, Morocco.
The installation in the Green Room includes furniture kindly provided by Frank Landau. The ceramics are presented in a ‘Süschala Vitrine’ from Zuffenhausen, Stuttgart, and on glass and brass side-tables from the 1960s.
Special thanks goes to Dr. Muneera Salem-Murdock (Country Director, MCC, Morocco), for facilitating Shane Munro's research in Morocco.
At the close of the exhibition, Shane Munro’s commission will become part of the Weltkulturen Museum’s collection, taking the place of the destroyed artefacts.
Works by Simon Popper, based on other museum inventory cards of objects destroyed in World War II, are currently on display in the Weltkulturen Museum’s main exhibition ‘Object Atlas – Fieldwork in the
Museum’.
23rd May – 15th July 2012
Newsflash Weltkulturen Museum
