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Museum’s new wing aims to be ‘architectonic highlight’

Basel’s fine art museum has reopened after a three-year, 100 million-franc renovation project including the construction of a third building designed by local architects.

Published: 19 April 2016 08:40 CEST

Museum's new wing aims to be ‘architectonic highlight’

The new building is over the road from the original museum. Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel

On Sunday the Kunstmuseum Basel, one of Switzerland’s most important public art museums, opened the doors to its brand new building, three years in the making, and reopened its main building, which has been closed for renovations for the past 13 months.

The construction work means the museum now comprises 10,000m2 of exhibition space set over three buildings: the renovated original museum, which dates from 1936; a second space dedicated to contemporary art; and the new building.

The total cost of the work was 100 million francs ($104 million), 50 percent of which was public money.

In a statement, the museum said “The new building provides an exhibition space that meets the most exacting demands of art presentation today, and in future it will house all major special exhibitions.”

It also said it hoped the new building – designed by Basel-based architects Christ & Gantenbein – would be “another architectonic highlight in the Basel cityscape”.

Basel has long been a hub for cutting-edge architecture. As the native city of star architects Herzog & de Meuron it features many of their creations, as well as buildings designed by many other internationally renowned architects including Mario Botta and Renzo Piano.

As well as special exhibitions, the new building will house the Kunstmuseum’s collection of art from 1950 to 1990, in particular American art.

Meanwhile, renovation work in the main building has created new spaces for the bookshop and art education workshops, as well as an underground link to the new building just over the road.

The third building, the Gegenwart, houses work from 1990 to the present day.

The world-renowned Kunstmuseum’s collections encompass 4,000 paintings and 30,000 drawings, including one collection dating back to the 17th century, making it the world’s oldest municipal art collection.

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African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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