24.05.2017
19 Uhr
Salon des ehem. Palais Dürckheim, Cranachstraße 47, Weimar

Showing and Concealing. On the Handling of Pictures Behind Curtains Vortrag von Claudia Blümle

What is it that makes us go to a museum to look at art? Why do we look again and again at the same painting, and why do we do this sometimes for longer and sometimes for shorter periods of time? Because the painting gives to the person looking at it something to see? Or because something is concealed in what is visible, so that the painting becomes mysterious or enigmatic? When we encounter artworks in which curtains are depicted, they give us answers to these questions. A curtain that has been pulled aside, in the act of unveiling, allows something to appear that had previously been hidden. A drawn veil hints only vaguely at what might appear. For the viewer, in such cases, there is always a degree of uncertainty about how something is given to be seen in the artwork, or about what it is that the artwork shows. In this connection, we should recall that for centuries artworks themselves were concealed behind curtains. A number of paintings have come down to us showing situations in which picture curtains are depicted; here, the presentation of artworks is dramaturgically staged as action.