[artinfo] Kunsthalle Bremen, International Museum Fellowship

[e-artnow]

Call for Applications: International Museum Fellowship

Kunsthalle Bremen

http://www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/

Deadline: 8 February 2016

As a part of the programme 'International Museum Fellowship', the 
Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Culture Foundation) is 
funding an 18-month Fellowship at the Kunsthalle Bremen scheduled to 
commence on 1 April 2016. The Fellowship shall be devoted to the 
research and the development of an exhibition for the project 'The 
Blind Spot: Global Trade, Patronage and Collecting History in the 
Colonial Period in the Kunsthalle Bremen'.

The Kunsthalle Bremen is one of Germany's most important art 
galleries. It continues to be operated by the Kunstverein in Bremen 
(Bremen Art Association), which was founded in 1823 by a small group 
of citizens of Bremen. The foundation of the Kunstverein took place 
in an era of rapidly expanding intercontinental trade relations, 
economic imperialism and colonial expansion, in which the city of 
Bremen was an active participant. The founders and leading supporters 
of the Kunstverein included numerous internationally active 
merchants, who contributed to the formation of the Kunsthalle's 
collection through donations. They further supported various 
expansions of the Kunsthalle. The dark side of these charitable 
activities has barely been researched to date.

The museum is searching for a curator or emerging scholar with the 
task of independently re-examining the history and the collection of 
the Kunstverein in Bremen - within the context of colonialism and in 
comparison with major German, European and American museums. The 
research and the development of an exhibition project are to 
concentrate on two primary aspects:

1) a productive analysis of institutional collecting history, civic 
patronage and the formation of taste in the context of the history of 
trade and colonialism in Bremen and Germany, by means of a critical, 
Postcolonial approach;

2) a critical examination of the art collected and exhibited by the 
Kunstverein and Kunsthalle Bremen, shedding light on the reception of 
'primitive art' in the context of early modernism, also using 
iconographic motifs and collection history to document traces of the 
interaction with non-European cultures.

In an international symposium, an exhibition and an accompanying 
catalogue, a debate about intercultural work in museums is to be 
initiated and, beyond this, perspectives are to be developed for the 
Kunsthalle Bremen's future collection strategy and presentation. 
Reflection on the colonial legacy is thus to provide a stimulus for a 
creative encounter with the effects of globalisation and migration 
today and to raise new questions about cultural difference and 
identity.

The fellowship is intended for outstanding emerging scholars and 
curators from the fields of art history, cultural studies, history or 
comparable areas who primarily live and work outside of Germany - 
within Europe or, particularly, outside of Europe.

The deadline for applications is 8 February 2016.

Please visit the museum's website for further information on the 
application process:
<http://www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/kunsthalle/ueber-uns/offene-stellen/>www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/kunsthalle/ueber-uns/offene-stellen/


<mailto:hausdorf at kunsthalle-bremen.de>hausdorf at kunsthalle-bremen.de
Dr. Eva Fischer-Hausdorf


<http://http://www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/>