The Kunstarchiv Beeskow finally has a website of its own (including a completely inexplicable Windows-esque splash page). This archive houses a very large collection of art gathered from state buildings across East Germany: "culture palaces," factories, government office buildings, schools, you name it. There are a few pictures on the site, including one of my favorites, Hartmut Staakex's Schönes Wochenende. But mostly it contains a general description of the collection, the entire baroque Benutzungsordnung, and brief info on two recent exhibitions.
Apparently I could have made it to the Landwirtschaft show when I was in Berlin in the fall, but I didn't know about it, in spite of trying like crazy to find out if there was a show up. For about the last ten years the problem has been that the collection, which wasn't really an archive yet, didn't have its own internet presence, or any presence really. It was just a big pile of pictures out in the hinterlands. The collection had moved around a bit before the Länder established a permanent home for it Beeskow, and with the exception of a few small shows the work was pretty much closed off to the public.
They charge for use of the archive, which is a new one to me, but maybe it's more common than I know? Regardless: now that they're really open to the public, I gotta find time to define a project so I can get in there and do some digging.
Posted by Heather at March 5, 2006 07:56 AM
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