Demonstrationsraum (Demonstration Room) is an exhibition on the "Abstract Cabinet" by El Lissitzky (1890-1941) conceived as an Augmented Reality app. The project is based on Lissitzky’s artistic and social vision of the combination of art and technology which is transferred into an interactive application consisting of historical and contemporary photographs. By employing this media technology, the complex history of the Demonstrationsraum is rendered visible with the help of its archival material. At the same time, the application opens a virtual space in which users can inscribe themselves into the historiography of this museum object by taking a selfie. The active participation of the viewer as an constitutive part of the museum presentation of the "Abstract Cabinet" is thereby reactivated. The project explores new methods of research, exhibition and knowledge production with the aim of a scientifically sound and at the same time low-threshold representation of the history and art historiography of this complex art object.
Demonstrationsraum („demonstration room“) is how El Lissitzky called the exhibition space for constructivist art he designed in 1926 for the International Art Exhibition in Dresden. The term expresses its twofold function: presenting artworks to an audience, and addressing the conditions of this presentation.
In line with Lissitzky’s claim, Demonstrationsraum is also the title of this interactive exhibition project on the history of his ‘Abstract Cabinet’. Taking the existing documentary material on the room as a starting point, it visualizes its various manifestations across time and space. From the late 1920s on, the Cabinet or its reconstructions have repeatedly been subject to photographic documentation, the totality of which now allows to trace the historical development of the space. For the first time, Demonstrationsraum assembles a selection of these photographs, making them publically accessible through an augmented-reality app. Depending on the visitor’s position, the historical imagery corresponding to the perspective of the user is superposed upon the real-time camera image on an iPad screen. Visitors are able to navigate through a diversity of photographic representations and moments of capture, thus experiencing the Cabinet and its history in an entirely novel way: as a space that, due to political, cultural, institutional and technical reasons, underwent numerous transformations in its eventful history.
Exhibition
Sprengel Museum Hannover, Jun 5th—Oct 16th, 2016
El Lissitzky intended his Abstract Cabinet (1926/27) to function as a “Demonstrationsraum” (demonstration room): an exhibition space for abstract art that makes visitors aware of their own visual experience, and thus of the conditions of exhibiting itself, through an array of devices fostering both interaction and disorientation. The work of the Russian avantgarde artist has had a fragmented and changeful history. Initially installed in the Provinzialmuseum Hannover in 1927 as a commission by Alexander Dorner, and destroyed only ten years later by the National Socialists, it was reconstructed in 1968 for the Landesmuseum Hannover. This second version was transferred to the Sprengel Museum in 1979, where it has since been permanently exhibited. Each of the Cabinet’s different states has been documented in photographs, so that photography has had a significant impact on the evolution of the space—both in retrospect to historical versions as well as for the current and future reconstructions.
In 2016, the history of this groundbreaking art space is reflected upon in an exceptional exhibition format. With the help of historical and recent photographs, an augmented reality app allows for a virtual visit to the Cabinet, proposing a time travel through the different versions of the installation. The app demonstrationsraum draws on El Lissitzky’s terminology and concept: It transfers his artistic and social vision of the conjunction of art and technology as well as the active engagement with art into a virtual exhibition. In the app, the diverging layers of time represented by digitized photographs taken since 1928 until today overlap precisely with the actual view of the visitors while moving through the space. Upon a closer look, both the differences between the three versions and their similarities become apparent, with the latter lying in the task of shattering the bourgeois monopoly on art, of facilitating participation—a goal that is actualized again by the demonstrationsraum app.
Download exhibition flyer
Politics of Aura. El Lissitzky’s ‘Abstract Cabinet’ between Musealisation and Participation
Conference on the project Demonstrationsraum at the Representation of Lower Saxony at the Federal Government in Berlin as part of its annual program "inspections // participation" in cooperation with the DFG Post-Graduate Program 1843 "The Photographic Dispositif" at the Braunschweig University of Art
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2015, noon – 5.30 pmLocation: Vertretung des Landes Niedersachsen beim Bund, In den Ministergärten 10, 10117 Berlin
The tension between aura detachment and the auratic appearance of the means to achieve it that made Lissitzky’s installation such an interesting case for contemporary artistic and curatorial practices is accelerated by its art historical canonization. The primal space was destroyed in the 1930s under the pressure of the cultural political campaigns of the nazi regime and re-erected as late as in 1968. This reconstruction of the “Abstract Cabinet” was moved to the Sprengel Museum Hannover in 1979, where it has since been on view as part of the permanent collection. The museum’s logic transformed it into a Gesamtkunstwerk, in opposition to a space dedicated to the experience of the spectator. An object, that today is the subject of considerations of conservation on the basis of the interpretation of historical documents of the space.
To what extent is the “Abstract Cabinet’s” claim of participation compatible with its musealization? Do non-morphological aspects of the space have to be taken into account when it comes to its preservation? And how can an original state be postulated, when even the complex form of the installation is only fragmentarily conveyed in photographs, construction sketches and drawings? How can its initial mission be experienced now by contemporary visitors? Which methods and media could be employed to re-activate the “Abstract Cabinet”?
These and further aspects of the project were reflected from different perspectives in the format of short lectures followed by a discussion during the conference on December 2.
11.30 a.m. Admittance
12.00 p.m. Stefanie Sembill, Curator, Vertretung des Landes Niedersachsen beim Bund: Opening Remarks
12.15 p.m. Dr. Isabel Schulz, Sprengel Museum Hannover: „Die Rekonstruktion von El Lissitzkys 'Kabinett der Abstrakten' auf dem Prüfstand: Geschichte, Museumspraxis, Pläne”
12.50 p.m. Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Hemken, Kunsthochschule Kassel: „Der bioskopische Raum: Lissitzkys Kabinett für abstrakte Kunst”
1.25 p.m. Prof. Markus Miessen, Studio Miessen, Berlin and University of Southern California | Los Angeles, USA: „Albtraum Partizipation"
2.00 p.m. Break
3.00 p.m. Carolin Anda, Yvonne Bialek, Cornelia Durka, Alexander Karpisek, Natascha Pohlmann and Philipp Sack, Curatorial Team of Demonstrationsraum, DFG Post-Graduate Program 1843 “The Photographic Dispositif” at the Braunschweig University of Art
3.30 p.m. Prof. Dr. Charlotte Klonk, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: „Kollektive Erfahrung im Zeitalter des Digitalen"
4.05 p.m. Prof. Dr. Annette Tietenberg, Braunschweig University of Art: „From A to B and back again. Raum wird zum Bild, Bild zum Raum"
4.40 p.m. Steven Ten Thije, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven: "The Politics of An Abstract Cabinet in a Provincial Museum"
5.10 p.m. Conclusion
The conference on the Demonstrationsraum is organized by Carolin Anda, Yvonne Bialek, Cornelia Durka, Alexander Karpisek, Natascha Pohlmann and Philipp Sack, members of the DFG Post-Graduate Program 1843 "The Photographic Dispositif" at the Braunschweig University of Art, in close cooperation with Stefanie Sembill, Representation of Lower Saxony at the Federal Government in Berlin.
The conference was followed by the evening program „Das Kabinett der Abstrakten // Gestern, heute & morgen“ with opening remarks by State Secretary Michael Rüter, General Secretary Lavinia Francke (Stiftung Niedersachsen), Dr. Reinhard Spieler (Director of the Sprengel Museum Hannover) and Prof. Dr. Katharina Sykora (Chair of the DFG Post-Graduate Program 1843 "The Photographic Dispositif“) and the lecture „’Der erste Raum für abstrakte Kunst in deutschen Museen.’ (Kurt Schwitters)” Lissitzkys Raum für Hannover und seine frühen Raum- und Ausstellungskonzepte” by Prof. Dr. Ulrich Krempel (author and former Director of the Sprengel Museum Hannover).
Demonstrationsraum
An exhibition project by the DFG Post-Graduate Program 1843 ‘The Photographic Dispositif’ at the Braunschweig University of Art in collaboration with the Lower Saxony State Chancellery, Berlin, and the Sprengel Museum, Hannover
Nov 30th—Dec 13th 2016, Lower Saxony State Chancellery, BerlinJune—September 2016, Sprengel Museum Hannover,October—December 2016, Gallery of the Braunschweig University of Art
Concept/research/project coordination—DFG Post-Graduate Program 1843 ‘The Photographic Dispositif’Carolin Anda, Yvonne Bialek, Cornelia Durka, Alexander Karpisek, Natascha Pohlmann, Philipp SackProject coordination/exhibition management—Lower Saxony State ChancelleryStefanie Sembill
Project coordination/exhibition management—Sprengel Museum HannoverDr. Isabell Schulz
Project coordination/exhibition management—Braunschweig University of ArtAnne Prenzler
Technical implementationDie Etagen GmbH, Osnabrück
DesignFriederike Kühne
Speaker— DFG graduate school ‘The Photographic Dispositif’Prof. Dr. Katharina Sykora
Coordination and fund management— DFG graduate school ‘The Photographic Dispositif’Marcelina Kwiatkowski
Technical and conceptual adviceProf. Uli Plank, Institute for Media Research, Braunschweig University of ArtProf. Michael Seifert, Institute for Media Research, Braunschweig University of ArtProf. Markus Miessen, Studio Miessen, Berlin and University of Southern California | Los Angeles, USA
images © Charlotte Schmid, Yorck Maecke & Christian Pankratz