It was pretty late already, around 10 pm, when I arrived at the new national gallery of Berlin. The Melancholia exhibition that had already so many visitors was about to end soon so I took one of the last chances to have a look at it. Surprisingly there was not a long line anymore when I came to the building, no waiting time, I just entered the building. When I passed the ticket control and arrived at the first room a wave of heat greeted me. I had difficulties to find the pieces of art due to the crowds standing in front of them. So I wondered if the paintings are really save in this pretty humid and warm environment since the air conditioning is obviously not able anymore to regulate the temperature and keep it at a normal level due to the many people gathering especially at this beginning part of the exhibition.
Another room, another situation. A woman was asked by one of the museum gards to not put her jacket above her shoulder that she is carrying. In which way would carrying it over the shoulder effect the paintings? I don’t know. This is otherwise a “tolerant” exhibition. Even bags are allowed to be carried around and you can make notes in sketch books, which is a a very nice way of dealing with the visitors compared to the prussian rules that exist normally in berlin museums.
I moved on through the crowded rooms. Already when the MOMA-exhibition was in town there were always a lot of people in the museum and I normally enjoy it to actually have a closer and longer look at the sculptures and paintings which is obviously not possible here but what can you do?
The collection of art from different centuries, from artists like Dali, Picasso, Casper David Friedrich, Warhol, Dürer, Munch etc etc. - all about the topic melancholia in it’s different forms - is well sorted and actually almost all of the exhibited forms of art do have something to do with melancholia.
All in all it was worth a visit and I can advise everybody to have a look at it today - the last day of the exhibition.
Tags: art, Berlin, Melancholy-exhibition, museum, Neue-Nationalgalerie, paintings