Kerstin Barndt

Working through Ruins: Berlin's Neues Museum

The article traces the history of Berlins Neues Museum and its entanglement with ruin discourse from the buildings Prussian beginning through the reopening of the museum in 2009 and to a recent special exhibition, “Der Berliner Skulpturenfund. ‘Entartete’ Kunst im Bombenschutt” (“Berlins Sculpture Find: ‘Degenerate’ Art in Bomb Debris”). Read as an allegory of Germanys verletztes Gedächtnis (“wounded memory”), the museum achieves an intricate balance: one between holding open and aestheticizing the violence that attended both its foundation and its destruction.