It is so nice to feel an affinity for something that one reads about, and then when one actually visits, for it still to surprise, provoke and delight. So was it for me and the Neues Museum last Friday. I must have read about it around its re-opening in 2009, and then again in Together by Richard Sennett which I have just finished. When I talk about the museum I predominantly mean the building, rather than its collections. Originally designed by Friedrich August Stüler and opened in the 1850s, the building was bombed in WWII and left unprotected until the 1980s.
In his book, Sennett refers to the museum in relation to concepts of repair, in which the repairer responds to or, in a way, collaborates with the original craftsman or woman and the object to be repaired. He identifies three ways to repair – restore so that there is minimal trace of damage, remediate using new materials to improve the object while retaining its form, or reconfigure. He ascribes the reopening of the Neues Museum to the last category because the form of the building has been reimagined so that it too tells a story (although it is done with subtlety when compared to other reconfigured buildings).
How does this relate to my work? Leaving aside, for now and maybe until a trip to the psychiatrist’s couch, the fact that I unpick my canvases first; notions of repair are very relevant to the act of resewing in which my canvas works are joined or made whole again (see below). It is, as I am sure you can imagine, laborious, resewing by hand each thread, and physically arduous, hunched over a small canvas with my fingers pricked and rubbed raw. What I keep coming up against is the question of why this should matter to the viewer of the final work. So I went to the Neues Museum, as an example of something celebrated for the richness of the narrative created through the way it has been repaired, to relate the strategies adopted by the architect, David Chipperfield (supported by Julian Harrap), to the context of my own work.
In his book, Sennett refers to the museum in relation to concepts of repair, in which the repairer responds to or, in a way, collaborates with the original craftsman or woman and the object to be repaired. He identifies three ways to repair – restore so that there is minimal trace of damage, remediate using new materials to improve the object while retaining its form, or reconfigure. He ascribes the reopening of the Neues Museum to the last category because the form of the building has been reimagined so that it too tells a story (although it is done with subtlety when compared to other reconfigured buildings).
How does this relate to my work? Leaving aside, for now and maybe until a trip to the psychiatrist’s couch, the fact that I unpick my canvases first; notions of repair are very relevant to the act of resewing in which my canvas works are joined or made whole again (see below). It is, as I am sure you can imagine, laborious, resewing by hand each thread, and physically arduous, hunched over a small canvas with my fingers pricked and rubbed raw. What I keep coming up against is the question of why this should matter to the viewer of the final work. So I went to the Neues Museum, as an example of something celebrated for the richness of the narrative created through the way it has been repaired, to relate the strategies adopted by the architect, David Chipperfield (supported by Julian Harrap), to the context of my own work.
Detail of work in progress: onion skin and silver birch leaf dyed canvases, sewn together. Photograph: Bridget H Jackson
The building weaves several narratives together in its restoration. Where the original building could be preserved it has been, complete with the highly decorated surfaces, originally intended by Stüler to make the building as aesthetically interesting and instructive as the objects it housed. In places the building has been restored using original fragments, or similar materials – walls were rebuilt using bricks reclaimed from demolished houses – or materials were painstakingly recrafted. One man apparently spent three years making 30,000 cylindrical clay pots to repair the domed ceilings. The damage isn’t hidden by the repair, old and new are distinct. In that, the building echoes the way that its collection of Egyptian and European antiquities have been conserved so it is clear what is the historical original (see below). So on going round the museum I believe that each visitor’s experience is probably unique, in that we engage with the three narratives available to us – the original building, the history of its destruction and the collections it housed - to a different extent. I would like to know how someone arriving completely cold to the building, not knowing any of its history, would respond. For me the building dominated my experience as it was the purpose of my visit.
Ethnographical hall, with conserved stone relief in the foreground. Photograph: Bridget H Jackson
The Egyptian Court, with fragments of original wall paintings and new structures. Photograph: Bridget H Jackson
Fragments of Egyptian reliefs of agricultural scenes, clearing showing what is the original antiquity and what has been added to preserve them. Photograph: Bridget H Jackson
It is a hard building to photograph. There wasn’t a single view which I felt captured the essence of the building so I have tried to show a few details below. It is dramatic and busy, and reveals itself slowly as one walks around it. It has a physical presence rather than the fragility of a ruin (in contrast to the way the Hotel Esplanade has been preserved, in glass-encased fragments, elsewhere in the city). It is entirely contemporary, not a relic of a bygone era. While it is not my craft, I believe that the way the architects restored the building must have involved engaging closely with each space on its own terms. Engaging, with what was there and salvageable, developing strategies to replace what was not; architect’s models and historical documents being secondary to the materiality of the building itself. On walking around the building the word that turned over in my mind was integrity: in preserving or replacing the original materiality of the building, in retaining its history, and in not creating a pastiche of the past.
Details from the restoration of the Neues Museum - ceiling, wall and floor. Photographs: Bridget H Jackson
In my work, it brings me back to the possibility that I need to use materials with a richer narrative than new raw canvas, as I mentioned in my earlier blog Materials, surface and textures. I am reluctant to leap to a new material because it needs to feel right – something which I choose to use and display for a specific and reason - and it is clear to me that I don’t know what that is yet. As an aside, I write this wearing a jumper with bright spots I added to repair its moth-eaten holes; it has been suggested to me in the past that I should integrate my life and art more closely. Not that I am suggesting putting my wardrobe on display, but that I may want to transfer the aesthetic. The act of repair in my work is methodical, slow and visible as in the Neues Museum. But where mine is imperfect, the repaired parts of the building have been done so expertly, flawlessly complementing the damaged original. To balance a different and potentially damaged material it may be that I need to demonstrate greater skill, or seek unity and integrity through the materials I use in my repair.
Berliner Stadtschloss building site. Photograph: Bridget H Jackson Post Script: Near to the Neues Museum a very different kind of repair is taking place. They are rebuilding the Berlin Stadtschloss, a baroque palace which was the winter residence of the kings of Prussia. It was damaged in WWII and demolished in the 1950s by the then East German government. Although not an exact replica, its external facade will be like the original to recreate the historic views on the Museum Insel, with lots of money being invested in craftspeople to recreate the external decoration. I can't help feeling this recreation leans towards Disneyfication.
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