DRESDEN'S NEW MODERN-ART HOME

It was in August 2002 when Dresden, Saxony’s culture-rich capital—Germany's “Florence on the Elbe”—was hit by an unprecedented flooding of the Elbe river. One of the casualties was the Neo-Renaissance Albertinum, a former arsenal of the Saxon rulers and an art museum since 1887. Having emerged from the Dresden bombings in 1945 more or less unscathed, the museum was suddenly under attack once again, this time by an influx of water.

Paintings and sculptures were evacuated from the Albertinum's basement storerooms within hours, and just before the water penetrated, recalls Martin Roth, general director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the state art collection. Ruined, the building was forced to close. But as often in life, and especially in Dresden, even the greatest disaster affords a chance for a new beginning.

Three months later, 45 renowned artists, including Gerhard Richter, a Dresden-born painter, and Georg Baselitz, a German sculptor, donated their own works at an auction to raise money to refurbish the Albertinum. This event alone raised € 3.4m, the first drop of a grand € 51m plan to reimagine the building. The results can now be seen on June 20th, when the Albertinum reopens, the highlight of this year’s 450th anniversary of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

Last week I had the opportunity to admire both the fantastically reconstructed building and parts of the New Masters Gallery and Sculpture Collection. The new Albertinum hardly reminded me of the old one I knew from past visits. Thanks to a spectacular new glass-and-steel roof, daylight shines not only through the new storerooms above the inner courtyard—an excellent flood-proof solution—but also the rooms of the New Masters Gallery, which allowed me to see the paintings literally in a new light.

Most of the collection of more than 300 works already graced the new galleries in time for my visit. The collection is impressive, both for its quality and its broad reach, ranging from paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, Germany's most important Romantic artist, to more modern works by Otto Dix, Georg Baselitz and Gerhard Richter. The works are arranged to highlight unexpected connections between old and new—a fitting move in a museum within a city within a country that must constantly balance history with reinvention.

Many of the Albertinum's works have been acquired in the last ten years. Richter, arguably the greatest living contemporary painter, fills two rooms. The anonymous buyer who purchased his “Der Fels” (“The Rock”) at the auction has offered it to the museum as a permanent loan. And 12 abstract glass-and-steel construction panels he made in 2002 and 2010 are about to enjoy their world premiere.

Hopefully the only flood the Albertinum will suffer from now is one of visitors.

~ CORNELIA GUNTHER

Picture credit: David Brandt, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden