Das Humboldt Lab. Museumsexperimente zwischen postkolonialer Revision und szenografischer Wende by Johanna Di Blasi

Abstract

Reviewed by: Das Humboldt Lab. Museumsexperimente zwischen postkolonialer Revision und szenografischer Wende by Johanna Di Blasi Mark W. Rectanus Das Humboldt Lab. Museumsexperimente zwischen postkolonialer Revision und szenografischer Wende. By Johanna Di Blasi. Bielefeld: transcript, 2019. Pp. 292. Paper €34.99. ISBN 978-3837649208. This volume focuses on the Humboldt Lab Dahlem (2012–2015) as an experimental platform for exploring the futures of ethnographic collecting, curating, exhibiting, and collaborative research. Johanna Di Blasi examines the role of the Humboldt Lab in developing conceptual models and practices for the integration of the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin-Dahlem (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) into the institutional structure of the Humboldt Forum prior to its projected opening in 2020 (65–66). As a Probebühne for the Humboldt Forum, the Humboldt Lab developed a collaborative, transdisciplinary space, which subsequently resulted in thirty projects and engaged 300 anthropologists, curators, and artists in testing alternative curatorial practices and new exhibition designs (73). Di Blasi’s study, based on her dissertation, not only references the ongoing debates regarding the development of the Humboldt Forum but also intersects with broader discourses in cultural anthropology, art history, and museum studies regarding the contested historical legacies and contemporary roles of ethnological museums and related issues of decolonization, repatriation of collections, participatory museums, institutional critique, and socially engaged art. Although neither the Humboldt Lab nor the Forum were designated as “museums,” [End Page 651] the Lab was an attempt to navigate a path forward from the museums in Dahlem and their ethnographic collections to the new institutional context of the Humboldt Forum, located behind the façade of the Berliner Schloss. Di Blasi focuses on two processes developed by the Humboldt Lab project. First, the author explores the pivotal role of the transdisciplinary teams of researchers, curators, and artists in developing projects that might rethink the presentation and mediation of ethnological collections. Here, Di Blasi situates the Humboldt Lab within the context of the historical trajectory of museum experiments and artistic interventions, such as Fred Wilson’s Colonial Collection (1990) and Mining the Museum (1992–1993) and suggests expanding the notion of “decolonizing the gaze” to “demusealizing the gaze” (“Demusealisierung des Blicks”) (9). Second, Di Blasi argues that the design strategies and scenographies developed for the Humboldt Forum and Humboldt Lab, by consultants Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA), Martin Heller (Heller Enterprises), and other consultants, reflect the accelerated commercialization of exhibition designs that have been shaped by the aesthetics of the experience economy, including multimedia environments and infotainment (203–212). While scenographic exhibitions (associated with theatrical staging and interactive, multimedia displays) are well-established tools for visitor engagement, Di Blasi argues that a primary focus on creating themed environments has played a problematic role in the Humboldt Lab by limiting the potential to engage audiences in more critical modes. In chapter 1, Di Blasi reviews ongoing debates regarding artist-curator collaborations in ethnographic fieldwork and in museums—e.g., Hal Foster’s article “The Artist as Ethnographer” (1995)—which will also be familiar to researchers in cultural anthropology, art history, and museum studies. This discussion references wide- ranging interventions and paracuratorial practices by artists that aim to destabilize the collecting and exhibition practices of museums in the West, e.g., by decontextualizing and recontextualizing artifacts and art works (17–31). In chapters 2 and 3, Di Blasi discusses the notion of a lab as a platform for collaborative experiments, the organization of the Humboldt Lab, and its relations to the development of the Humboldt Forum. Chapter 4 presents several case studies of artist projects presented in the Humboldt Lab, including Zhao Zhao’s Waterfall (2013) and Mathilde ter Heijne’s Pulling Matter from Unknown Sources (2015). In addition, Di Blasi provides an insightful analysis of the Humboldt Lab’s controversial cancellation of Dinner Performance (2014), which was developed by the artist collective Politique Culinaire and based on the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the administrative and institutional issues that emerged from conflicts related to scenographic designs and the practices of research-based curating at the ethnological museums in Dahlem. Di Blasi argues...