Museums are slowly opening again as the coronavirus lockdowns are being eased. There are strict hygiene regulations — and they have advantages.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Macdougall
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Tuesday morning, 10 a.m. on the dot. The Kunstsammlung NRW in Düsseldorf was one of the first museums in Germany to open its revolving doors. Outside, about twenty visitors wearing face masks stood in line, waiting.
Museum director Susanne Gaensheimer welcomed them. I have ingeniously lashed my microphone to a broomstick to make sure I keep my distance during interviews. Ms. Gaensheimer told me she was apprehensive ahead of the opening after weeks of lockdown. Have they thought about everything? And above all, is anybody going to show up?
Over the past few weeks she and her staff prepared the reopening of K20, where the state art collection houses 20th century works of art, according to the new hygiene regulations.
This includes keeping people 1.50 meters apart in the exhibition rooms, providing hand sanitizer and compulsory face masks. She hopes people will already be wearing masks when they enter the museum, but says the museum will "provide a disposable mask" for anyone who hasn't thought to bring one.
Susanne Gaensheimer, direct of the Art Collection North Rhine-WestphaliaImage: Kunstsammlung NRW/ Andreas Endermann
Marking distances with tape
At intervals, lines of tape mark the floor in the K20 entrance hall. The register area is protected by plexiglass spit guards. On the first day after the lockdown, only few entered the Kunstsammlung NRW museum.
A mother had her two young children in tow, happy to experience a bit of normality even if she was worried that the infections could rise again. "Nevertheless, we are happy. That's why we headed here so early today."
A group of three girlfriends couldn't wait for the doors to open. "We can't do without art," said one of them, making a beeline for the exhibition "Pablo Picasso. War years 1939 to 1945."
Art in times of war: Picasso during WWII
When the Nazis occupied France, they labeled Pablo Picasso's art "degenerate," yet the painter stayed in Paris. The show "Pablo Picasso: The War Years 1930-1945" delves into the relationship between his art and the war.
Image: Succession Picasso/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019, Photographic Archives Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
Morbid still life
"I have not painted the war, because I am not the kind of painter who goes out like a photographer looking for something to depict. But I have no doubt that the war is in these paintings I have done," Spanish painter Pablo Picasso said after the end of WWII. From 1939-1945, Picasso primarily painted portraits, nudes or still lifes such as "Three Lamb's Heads" (1939), which had dark undertones.
Image: Succession Picasso/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019, Photographic Archives Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
Degenerate and forbidden
In June 1940 the Nazis occupied Paris. Picasso, who had called the city his home since 1904, had fled to southern France when war broke out. But in August 1940 he returned to his Parisian studio, despite the occupation. The Nazis termed him "degenerate" and prevented him from exhibiting his art. Yet Picasso remained in his adopted homeland until the war's end, unlike many of his colleagues.
Image: ullstein bild/SZ Photo
Across the Atlantic
Picasso, a Spanish citizen, had applied for French citizenship in early 1940, but his application was rejected because of his supposedly extremist communist tendencies. Unable to show in Paris, the artist was celebrated in New York. In 1939-40 the Museum of Modern Art hosted a retrospective of his major works, including "Guernica," the stark mourning tribute to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).
Image: Imago Images/Zuma/Keystone
Fighting for a cause
Before World War II, the Spanish artist had taken a clear political stance. He even mocked dictator Francisco Franco, portraying him as the hapless Don Quixote. He donated proceeds from published works to Spanish refugee aid organizations and gave the profits from exhibitions to Spain's republican party. Yet his works during WWII, including this dove from 1942, appeared harmless in comparison.
"Why do you think I date everything I make? Because it's not enough to know an artist's works. One must also know when he made them, why, how, under what circumstances," Picasso explained in 1943. "Still Life with Skull of Ox" was created one year earlier. Skulls, often a symbol of the fragility of life, are a frequently recurring motif in his work during the WWII years.
Image: Succession Picasso/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019, Foto: Walter Klein, Düsseldorf
Apolitical art?
In 1944 the Allies liberated Paris. Picasso was celebrated as a survivor. He joined the Communist Party but was accused by some of his comrades of having been too apolitical artistically. He replied that the artist "is a political being, constantly aware of the heart-breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/H. Harris
In times of peace
Picasso frequently traveled to the South of France after WWII. In 1945 his style changed again, and he began to reinterpret works by the old masters. The artist remained politically active, taking part in world peace congresses, among other events. During this time, he also created his drawing of a dove of peace, which remains an internationally recognized symbol to this day.
Image: UPI/dpa/picture alliance
Picasso and war on show
"Pablo Picasso: The War Years 1939-1945" shows Picasso's life during a challenging period of threats and destruction. The exhibition runs from February 15 to June 14 at the K20 exhibition space in Dusseldorf, part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, in Germany's northwest. The show is a collaboration with the Museum of Grenoble and the Picasso Museum in Paris.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Rothermel
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App instead of audio guide
Much has changed. For the time being, there are no guided tours, and no audio guides; instead, visitors can download an info app on their own mobile phones. Despite these changes, conditions for visiting a blockbuster exhibition like "Pablo Picasso's War Years" are actually ideal.
Even at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, only a few meters down the street, there is not much of a crowd. Director Gregor Jansen originally planned to celebrate the opening of the exhibition "Subject and Object. Photo Rhein Ruhr" at the end of March with a vernissage, but instead, was forced to close the museum. "These days, there are no openings with speeches or with many artists, people celebrate in silence," he said.
The Picasso exhibition is open to only 60 visitors simultaneouslyImage: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen/Achim Kukulies
New task for the staff
The exhibition "Subject and Object" shows how photography has established itself as a separate art genre since the 1960s between Essen, Krefeld, Düsseldorf and Cologne. Early objective photography works by Bernd and Hilla Becher are on display as well as portrait photography by the Essen-based Detlef Orlopp or works by younger, even lesser-known artists.
Photographs by the couple Bernd and Hilla Becher can be seen again in the Düsseldorf Art GalleryImage: Estate Bernd/Hilla Becher
There was plenty of space in the Kunsthalle, too, on the first day after the lockdown. About fifteen visitors were spread out over the three floors, all of them wearing DIY face masks.
The Kunsthalle Düsseldorf has strict hygiene regulations. A museum staff member is responsible for ensuring that not too many visitors enter at the same time. Wielding a traffic sign like a crossing guard, he stands at the entrance. "If the desk area is occupied, it's red, if you can go ahead, it's green," he says with a smile.
For visitors that day, buying a ticket for the exhibition was an important sign of solidarity. After all, the saying goes, "an empty museum means empty life."
