Marion Ackermann is getting into Germany’s largest museum job at a time of nice upheaval on the Prussian Cultural Heritage Basis—a tradition behemoth encompassing 2,400 staff and 25 libraries, archives, analysis institutes and museums housing greater than 5 million objects in Berlin.
Ackermann succeeds Hermann Parzinger, who retires after 17 years as president of the muse (identified by its German initials SPK), and she or he would be the first girl within the position. Ackermann arrives two months after the federal government and states agreed to extend funding for the SPK and 6 months after parliament handed a sweeping reform designed to deal with what a gaggle of impartial consultants termed the muse’s “dysfunctional” construction.
Nobody can argue that these steps, although essential, will banish all of the SPK’s troubles. Least of all Ackermann, who sees a constructing backlog as considered one of her main challenges. “We’ve got a large quantity of development—some initiatives have to be completed in time, others nonetheless to be began,” she tells The Artwork Newspaper.
Established in 1957 to supervise West Berlin’s world-class artwork collections, the SPK has, for the reason that fall of the Berlin Wall, largely centered on combining the collections of the previous East and West and reshaping town’s museum panorama, with main initiatives such because the reconstruction of Museum Island, which this 12 months celebrates its 2 hundredth anniversary.
A renovation of the Pergamon Museum started in 2012. Initially scheduled for completion in 2019, the museum is no longer anticipated to completely reopen till 2037. Prices have soared correspondingly—the most recent estimate is about €1.5bn. “A serious a part of the Pergamon will open in early 2027,” Ackermann says. “That shall be a really large occasion.”
That very same 12 months, development is because of end on the Berlin Trendy—a brand new museum of Twentieth-century artwork designed by Herzog & de Meuron—whose prices have trebled because it was first conceived. However loads of different buildings within the SPK’s portfolio want pressing renovation. Ackermann says planning for the Altes Museum, the fifth and closing museum on Museum Island to be overhauled, is more likely to start earlier than work on the Pergamon wraps up. In the meantime, planning can also be beneath means for the pressing renovation of the Staatsbibliothek constructing on Potsdamer Platz, and a brand new depot is beneath development in southeastern Berlin.
New funding agreements
In March, the outgoing German authorities and 16 states signed the brand new funding settlement, which takes impact in January 2026. The annual funding for the SPK will improve by 10% to €130m, with 75% coming from the federal authorities and 25% from the states, whose contribution recognises the flagship position Berlin’s museums play on a nationwide degree.
This accounts for lower than a 3rd of the SPK’s funds, which was €415m in 2023. That 12 months, the federal authorities and states offered one-off funds for particular initiatives, whereas the federal government additionally contributed €114m for development initiatives. “I’m very glad that the federal authorities and states have united to assist the Prussian Cultural Heritage Basis,” Ackermann says. “However the monetary state of affairs stays difficult, so we’ll want additional dedication.”
Considered one of Ackermann’s key duties shall be to make sure easy implementation of a legislation reforming the byzantine construction of the SPK, authorized by the Bundestag on 31 January, 5 years after an knowledgeable panel’s report described the SPK as “structurally overwhelmed”. Parzinger has mentioned the reforms, which take impact in December, will make the SPK “extra fashionable, extra environment friendly, extra synergetic and faster”.
The SPK’S board of trustees shall be diminished to 9 from 20. The president will lead an govt board consisting of as much as seven representatives of the muse’s establishments. Prime-level employees will now not be civil servants, as an alternative serving limited-term contracts. One layer of hierarchy—the Berlin State Museums—has been eradicated.A key consequence of this final reform is way larger autonomy for particular person museums, which can now oversee their very own staffing and budgets. “Eliminating the center degree of the forms was a revolution and an enormous reduction,” Ackermann says. “The person establishments should be capable to shine.”
Ackermann brings a wealth of related expertise, having run the Dresden State Artwork Collections, a equally massive organisation overseeing 15 particular person establishments with world-class collections. She was the unanimous alternative of a fee charged with discovering Parzinger’s successor. Claudia Roth, who till Could was the German tradition minister, described Ackermann as “a wonderful museums supervisor, artwork knowledgeable and strategist who’s extraordinarily well-connected each nationally and internationally” and has a “confirmed observe report in efficiently shaping transformation processes”.
Schooling and communication
Amongst Ackermann’s priorities shall be boosting the SPK’s work in training and communication. “We’re not adequately outfitted, and so we aren’t working on the identical degree as comparable establishments,” she says. “I’m attempting to look not only for state funding, however I may also flip to personal individuals and firms for assist, notably in these areas—training and communication—and never simply in Berlin and Germany however worldwide.”
Ackermann says she desires to look at how customer numbers might be improved too. In 2023, the SPK’s museums notched up 4.4 million guests (2.6 million of those had been to Museum Island). Nonetheless, none of Berlin’s museums featured in The Artwork Newspaper’s annual checklist of the 100 most-visited museums for 2024.
“I all the time marvel why the collections of the Berlin museums don’t appeal to the identical numbers of holiday makers as, for instance, the Louvre,” Ackermann says. “Paris is larger than Berlin, for positive, and the cities’ general vacationer numbers are usually not comparable, however what are the opposite causes? I want to discover out. We have to work in a extra audience-orientated means, additionally focusing on particular teams, and to have a good time our long-term initiatives. We should always be capable to improve our customer numbers.”
She says her expertise in Dresden equips her properly for her new place, which is, nonetheless, “very far more advanced”, including that “political communication performs an enormous position”.
“Considered one of my most important challenges shall be to handle my very own power and sources,” she says. “Will probably be a query of setting priorities and discovering the correct rhythm.”
