After years of delays, Berlin's new Humboldt Forum has finally welcomed the public even as it remains at the center of debate about colonialism and museum collections.
A view of the inner courtyard, the Schlüterhof, of Berlin's Humboldt Forum Image: Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss/Foto: David von Becker
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On the banks of the Spree River between Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz, a massive new building towers into the Berlin sky. It stands on the former site of Berlin's City Palace, whose war-damaged remains were blown up in 1950 and replaced by East Germany's Palace of the Republic. In the newly built Humboldt Forum, which opened its doors on Tuesday, everything still smells fresh.
Just a few days ago, the new subway station was opened here with much pomp and circumstance; it provides access to the Museumsinsel, or Museum Island.
In 2002 the German parliament agreed to construct the cultural complex, with completion expected in 2019, the Humboldt anniversary year. But work dragged on, construction costs exploded. After a virtual opening in December 2020, part two of the opening now follows in installments, with the basement, the ground floor and the first of the three floors above becoming publicly accessible.
The Humboldt Forum prepares for its imminent openingImage: Stefan Dege/DW
Debate over the dome's cross
The Forum has long been the subject of criticism, including for its design choices. Italian star architect Franco Stella reconstructed a Baroque facade for three sides of the Humboldt Forum. The building is topped by a dome with angel figures and a cross that can be seen from afar. A gold-adorned statement by Prussian King Frederick William IV (1795-1861) calls for the submission of humanity to Christianity.
The fact that the Ethnological Museum and Dahlem's Museum of Asian Art are to move into the partial reconstruction of a Prussian palace likewise prompted criticism in advance, as the original palace the building replicates was a symbol of colonial power and genocide.
Hartmut Dorgerloh, general director of the Humboldt Forum Image: Stefan Dege/DW
The Humboldt Forum's collection also makes it a hot spot for the current colonialism debate. Is it still possible today to exhibit works of art and artifacts that ended up in German museums under unexplained circumstances, in which colonialism possibly played a significant role?
The Benin Bronzes and the Luf boat
At the moment, the debate revolves primarily around the Benin Bronzes, and the so-called Luf boat from what is now Papua New Guinea. The Benin Bronzes, valuable metal panels and sculptures from the Royal Palace of Benin, reached Europe and the US by the thousands after the British looted Benin City in 1897. Some of them entered the collections of German museums via art markets and auctions.
But, for now, the bronzes are to be shown in two halls of the Humboldt Forum, as is the Luf boat.
It is thought that German colonists may have looted the boat from the Indigenous people of Luf Island, part of Papua New Guinea's Bismarck Archipelago, in the late 19th century, during the violent colonial regime.
"Germany's colonial past has long been a blind spot in our culture of remembrance," Grütters said.
More than an exhibition hall
The Humboldt Forum is supposed to help change this. General Director Hartmut Dorgerloh has stressed that it aims to go beyond the traditional exhibition role and be a meeting place and a space for experiments.
Part of the Humboldt Forum's exhibition program: The historical sailboat originated in today's Papua New GuineaImage: Stefan Müchler/SPK
"Complex and painful topics such as looted art, provenance research and restitution issues will certainly be dealt with here," Dorgerloh said, "but we want to be very actively involved in these debates."
Despite its historic facade, the building on the banks of the Spree River centers around transparency. Visual axes crisscross the courtyard and provide a view out into neighboring districts. Inside there are movie theaters, stages for music and dance, and halls for exhibitions, conferences, and symposia, all equipped with the latest event technology. The interior space measures over 40,000 square meters (431,000 square feet).
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An exhibition on the ivory trade
Dorgerloh's statement is already evident in the opening exhibition, "Terrible Beauty: Elephant — Human — Ivory." With 200 exhibits from museums around the world, the show addresses the brutal history of the ivory trade. Visitors can view detailed carvings, take part in a broad series of discussions and view a range of films. The Humboldt Forum collaborated with museums and experts around the world to create the exhibition.
The beauty and horror of ivory art
In its opening exhibition "Terrible Beauty: Elephant — Human — Ivory," the new Humboldt Forum in Berlin sheds light on a deadly business that has been around for millennia.
Image: Andreanita/Alamy Stock Photo
'White gold'
Ivory has been a luxury item throughout time. It has been turned into art objects, like this tooth from 19th-century Angola. And although most countries now adhere to international animal and species protection agreements, demand for ivory continues unabated, and the illegal global trade flourishes. The tragic outcome is that every 20 minutes, an elephant pays with its life.
Image: Martin Franken/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Ethnologisches Museum
Radically decimated
Elephants are relatives of the woolly mammoth, which became extinct 12,000 years ago. Only 350,000 elephants still live today in the steppes and forests of Africa. In 1970, around two million elephants were still alive. Offers for tusks on the illegal market can reach up to $50,000 per tusk.
Image: Michael Cuthbert/Alamy Stock Photo
Colonial looting
As early as colonial times, ivory was already coveted booty. In the German colonies of Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, ivory was valued as a raw material that could be used to speculate on the markets. Thousands of tons of tusks were transported by land and sea, initially mainly to Europe and Asia and later also to America.
Image: KGPA Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
The beauty and burden of ivory
Ivory feels good to the touch and is easy to shape and carve. It is robust, yet elastic. It does not conduct heat, is never really cold and never gets too hot. The white color and the even shape embody purity and innocence for some cultures, although the tusks' brutal extraction tells a different story. The nature conservation organization WWF compares ivory with blood diamonds.
Image: picture-alliance/Xinhua/Then Chih Wey
Culture versus nature
Whether viewed as a cult object or a status symbol, ivory says a lot about the coexistence of humans and animals and about the relationship between nature and culture. Rather than rotting, ivory objects have survived for centuries, even millennia. Egyptians, Romans and Greeks, Chinese, Indians and African societies all valued exquisite carvings made of ivory.
Image: Marc Rasmus/Okapia/imageBROKER
Ivory's whole history
The trade in ivory objects, such as this carved jewelry box from Asia, helped spread artistic styles and modes of depiction around the globe. Yet ivory's history is a tale not only of cultural exchange but of capitalist value acquisition, violent appropriation and unequal power relations. The Humboldt Forum illuminates the connections in its exhibition, "Terrible Beauty: Elephant — Human — Ivory."
Image: Jürgen Liepe/bpk/Museum für Asiatische Kunst/SMB
A mammoth depiction
This figure of a mammoth originated some 35,000 years ago. It was found in a cave in southern Germany. The Humboldt Museum exhibition brings together pieces from many epochs and a wide variety of provenances. Exhibits include everything from ivory thrones, jewelry and hunting horns, to crucifixes, prayer chains and paperweights.
The Berlin exhibition even features a car trampled by an elephant, along with 200 other exhibits. For the show, the Humboldt Forum Foundation collaborated with German museums, as well as institutions in Kenya, London, Vienna and Paris. This photo shows the burning of huge stacks of confiscated elephant ivory by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in Nairobi National Park
Image: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo
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Other parts of the opening include a show in the palace basement that, together with a video panorama and 35 presentations located throughout the building, introduces visitors to the history of the site.
In the "Take a Seat!" exhibition, children can playfully explore the cultural technique of sitting. On the second floor, the Humboldt University's ecology exhibition, "After Nature," and the show "BERLIN GLOBAL," by Kulturprojekte Berlin and the Stadtmuseum Berlin, which looks at the German capital's global networking, have also opened their doors.
Some display cases are still empty; exhibits are still packed and or have not yet arrived.
There is plenty of memorabilia to be had in the museum shop, with everything from T-shirts, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, even replicas of ceiling lamps that once hung in the former East German Palace of the Republic. But the museum shop's bestselling item is a postcard that reads: "Wilhelm, Alexander and I" — a nod to the German scientists and explorers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, after whom the Forum is named.
Wilhelm und Alexander von Humboldt at the German History Museum
Gauges and measuring devices, drawings and Alexander von Humboldt's desk — the German History Museum presents 350 objects that illustrate the Humboldt brothers' perspectives and way of thinking.
Image: bpk /Kupferstichkabinett, SMB / Jörg P. Anders
Expedition to South America
Alexander von Humboldt was the first to depict the regions he visited in 3D — or to have them depicted this way. They include the Andes as seen in this picture by Aimé Bonpland. This method revealed different layers of earth and vegetation zones. During his expedition to the Andes, Humboldt climbed the summit of the Chimborazo volcano and described the experience of altitude sickness.
Image: BnF
Humboldt: Renaissance man
On his journey through today's Venezuela, Peru, Mexico and Ecuador, Humboldt opted not to take a draftsman long. Instead, he sketched his impressions himself — presumably also this llama in an illustration from 1802. Using line drawings, he proceeded quickly and precisely. During his trip to the New World, he completed around 450 illustrations of plants, animals and landscapes.
Image: bpk /Kupferstichkabinett, SMB / Jörg P. Anders
An interest in astrology
The original 13-foot-high sun stone that Alexander von Humboldt encountered in Mexico City depicts the sun god Tonatiuh with tongue extended. Humboldt identified it as an Aztec calendar stone. For him, this was the occasion to delve into old calendar and zodiac systems in America, Asia, Africa and Europe.
Image: National Museums Scotland
Criticial of slavery
Alexander von Humboldt spent five months of research in Cuba, which by then had been in Spanish hands for 250 years. "Without a doubt, slavery is the greatest of all evils," he wrote. Cuba today still fondly recalls the researcher from Germany. Numerous monuments, streets and a national park in Cuba are named after the German scientist.
Image: DHM/ S. Ahlers
State-of-the-art equipment
In his notes, Alexander von Humboldt listed 75 instruments he used on his expedition to the Americas. They include instruments for determining position and time, for navigation or for analyzing the air. This protractor was developed by an instrument maker named Jesse Ramsden. Humboldt's tools were among the most modern measuring instruments of the time.
Image: Région Grand Est - Inventaire général/Claude Menninger
Longtime companion
Alexander von Humboldt wrote and drew at this desk for 30 years. Made of birch, it has two large drawers and a removable drawing board. This is where he penned the second part of the legendary Kosmos lecture series and many other texts. Humboldt purchased the desk immediately after his move from Paris to Berlin, where he died on May 6, 1859.
Image: Sylvain Pelly/ Observatoire de Paris
Travel bug
Alexander is considered to be the Humboldt brother who was more eager to travel, but Wilhelm also regularly visited faraway lands. In 1799 he traveled to the Pyrenees as part of a group that took a scientific interest in the mountains. The above oil painting is by Alexandre Louis Robert Millin du Perreux (1802), whom Wilhelm met on the trip.
Image: Reproduktion/Galerie/Bassenge
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This article has been translated from German by Louisa Schaefer.
