At the invitation of Museum Folkwang, Cuban artist duo Los Carpinteros have created the installation Helm/Helmet/Yelmo as both new site for and new way of curating the Archaeology, Global Art and Applied Arts Collection started by Karl Ernst Osthaus.

Displaying works of ancient and non-European cultures alongside European avant-garde paintings and sculptures was a basic tenet of Museum Folkwang at its inception. To this day, the restoration, presentation, and maintenance of the Osthaus collection remains a central element of the museum’s mission. In the context of the intense debate over how Western museums engage non-European art includes the exploration of the history of how the items were aquired and well as a re-thinking of how the collection’s “artistic and historical significance” can be currently defined and what an “appropriate presentation” should accomplish.

Informed by a joint practice long engaged with elements of museum display, history and information architecture, Los Carpinteros create a temporary re-vision of the Folkwang and the Osthaus collection, as spectacular as it is inspiring. Helm/Helmet/Yelmo puts the museum itself on stage in new and unfamiliar fashion, with all its material qualities, modus operandi, and “institutional character” on display, even as it presents the items themselves in a state of revisionist liberation.

Funded by RWE

Opening hours 2014
Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm,
Friday 10am–10pm

Opening hours 2015
Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm,
Thursday and Friday 10am–8pm

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