BONN, GERMANY. Can an exhibition contribute to cultural reunification? Fifteen years after the reunification of Germany, twenty-five famous museums, libraries and archives of the country's new federal states are showing treasures from their collections. Major chapters of German and European history were written in what are now Eastern and Central Germany - regions which are home to the centres of Germany's common cultural identity: Dresden, Leipzig, Weimar, Wittenberg, Dessau, Potsdam, Berlin and many others. In a unique presentation, some six hundred outstanding paintings, sculptures, drawings, works of literature and music, precious objects and curiosities will be staged on 2000 square metres of gallery space. Visitors will stroll through treasure chambers and cabinets of curiosities, parks and picture galleries. Along the way, recordings of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Hndel will remind them of the decisive influence exerted by these great Central German composers on the history of European music.The exhibition "National Treasures of Germany. From Luther to the Bauhaus" at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) in Bonn promises a voyage of discovery through five centuries of European art and cultural history. Every one of the institutions participating in this event looks back on a varied and suspenseful collecting history of its own. At the time of Martin Luther's Reformation in the sixteenth century, the first museological collections of art and natural history objects were founded at the courts of princes and kings - treasure chambers which were open to a small, select public. The groundwork was thus laid for the world-famous museums in present-day Dresden, Potsdam, Leipzig, Schwerin and Gotha. The decisive role played by the cultural institutions of Eastern and Central Germany fell into oblivion when the country was divided. To help remedy that state of affairs, the exhibition will link the memory of such figures as Johann Sebastian Bach, Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Frst Pckler once again with the geographical locations of Leipzig, Greifswald, Chemnitz, Weimar, Muskau und Branitz, etc. No more than a small proportion of Germany's "National Treasures" can be placed on display. The exhibition will therefore be enhanced by a multi-media presentation of the participating museums, parks, archives and libraries, providing insight into the true wealth of Germany's treasure chambers at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
October 2005
