Fit for the future

From November 2024, the art collections of the Ruhr region can be discovered in a playful way with the web app ‘21 x 21. The collections of the RuhrKunstMuseen’. The talk ‘Past or future. Collection strategies in the globalised art market’ presented the network's digital project as an important step towards bringing diverse groups of people closer to the museums. It also looked at how collections can be increased in times of empty coffers.

Peter Gorschlüter, Director of Museum Folkwang, emphasised that there is no other region in Germany where there are so many museums with free admission. This strategy would be the first step towards breaking down barriers and widening the audience radius. In this way, the Folkwang Museum has achieved a five-fold increase in visitors to the collection alone in order to fulfil its educational and mediation mission.

Regina Selter, Director of Museum Ostwall in the Dortmunder U, talked about educational projects with which she has reached 16,000 schoolchildren. These projects are designed in such a way that people do not stay in their own city, but also visit other museums in the neighbourhood. The collection profiles, which are predominantly white and male due to their historical origins, also play a role. This is why the network is discussing the challenges of changing the collection profiles. The question is how to make a collection interesting for a broad, diverse audience. Since 2024, an advisory board has been set up at Museum Ostwall with people of different ages and cultural backgrounds to work with them on what they would like to see. A network also has a cultural policy function, which proved its worth in Marl when the sculpture museum was to be closed. They took a stand with an open letter. Noor Mertens, Director of the Bochum Art Museum, added that she was in the process of conducting university research projects to study more closely not the public that stays away, but the public that comes, especially their expectations of a museum visit.

All three directors considered the role of significant museum architecture for asserting themselves in an urban context to be just as relevant as the offerings beyond exhibitions. Regina Selter talked about the specific situation in a seven-storey building with other municipal institutions, including a cinema and the Technical University. A much younger audience is now being noticed, but they don't necessarily realise that the Dortmunder U is a museum with a collection. However, the offer is there and is also recognised. This situation has significantly triggered the process of moving into the future. According to Peter Gorschlüter, the Chipperfield building of the Museum Folkwang is more of a restrained architecture because it is associated with the first transparent building, which was designed by the municipal building director in the 1950s. It certainly fulfils the role of a socio-cultural centre with a large atrium that is desired today, but the question is how the needs of the future are to be assessed.

The web app ‘21 x 21: The Collections of the RuhrKunstMuseen’, which works on the principle of a dating portal, is an important step, as it combines the collections, the centrepiece of each museum, into an imaginary Ruhr region collection. In this way, intersections, references and additions can be emphasised and independent browsing through the collections made possible. Each museum has chosen a work that exemplifies the history of the collection. The other museums responded to each other's pictures. As a result, over 400 works have been brought together in the app, which can be discovered associatively with images, 3D animations and background information and perhaps visited in one of the museums afterwards. They form a foretaste of an analogue exhibition of highlights from the Ruhr art museums, which will run from 11 April to 27 July 2025 at Villa Hügel in Essen. This joint campaign, with which the Ruhr Art Museums are honouring the 15th year of their existence, is supported by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation and the Ruhr Regional Association.

In response to moderator Kathrin Luz's final question about collecting in the Ruhr region today, Peter Gorschlüter regretted not having a large budget for spontaneous purchases for a fair like ART COLOGNE. As the municipal purchasing budgets are negligible, purchasing decisions have to be carefully considered a long time in advance. Fortunately, there are other financing strategies, such as sponsoring organisations or foundations like the NRW Foundation. Donations are also extremely important in order to increase a collection and develop it in line with the times.