[digital]
Museum closed? Explore the MdbK digitally
Find plenty of tips to enjoy the MdbK from home. You can use our digital programme from your smartphone, tablet or computer. Experience art free of charge and wherever you like.You can find an extensive digital offer on our social media channels - so you don't have to miss the MdbK despite its closure. Find out about current offers here.
Exhibition film
And just like that … It's a wrap. The exhibition film of BILDERKOSMOS LEIPZIG is out now. Journalist and author Nastassja von der Weiden takes you on a tour through the exhibition. The MdbK is showing over 200 paintings and sculptures by more than 100 artists from the last 120 years. The Video (only in German) is available here: YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Podcasts
MdbK [talk] offers background information on artworks and artists from past and current exhibitions in podcast format.
Listen up: Together with journalist and writer Nastassja van der Weyden, we’ll take you on a journey into the vastness of the universe of images. 220 works, 15 rooms, over 100 years of art and history: Five topics, five conversations, one exhibition: Leipzig: A Universe of Images. 1905–2022.
In the context of the exhibition METRO-Net by Martin Kippenberger, the MdbK spoke in a three-part podcast with companions and supporters of the artist.
For the exhibition Link in Bio. Art after Social Media, participating artists were asked questions about our life in the digital sphere.
And no less than 15 podcast episodes were dedicated to East German artists whose works will be shown in the 2019 exhibition Point of no Return. Wende und Umbruch in der ostdeutschen Kunst.
You will find all talks available free of charge.
CDF Talks
As part of the exhibition Caspar David Friedrich and the Düsseldorf Romantics, curator Jan Nicolaisen will meet with four different experts at the exhibition to discuss various topics. With the art critic Johannes Grave from the University of Jena as guest, the two look at the relationship between Caspar David Friedrich and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Why Goethe was initially an admirer of the painter and later became one of his harshest critics will be revealed, as well as which of Friedrich's paintings caused the first major art scandal of the time.
Other guests and topics of discussion in the exhibition will be: art historian Wolfgang Ullrich on Caspar David Friedrich in the field of tension between the history of taste and the art market, restorer Kristina Mösl on her investigations into Caspar David Friedrich's painting technique, and journalist Florian Illies, who will ask the questions: Who is more romantic? Dresden or Düsseldorf? And what about Leipzig?
All talks will be uploaded to YouTube and IGTV and linked to Twitter and Facebook in time for the upload.
MdbK [insight]
Exclusive insights into the museum and its exhibitions can be found at MdbK [insight]. Art comes to your home and you have a digital MdbK experience. As part of MdbK [insight], we meet artists from our exhibitions, talk about their works or exchange ideas on relevant topics in the museum context. Learn more about photography and contemporary art from Leipzig, participation in the museum or the concept of Zero Waste. You can find MdbK [insight] on YouTube or IGTV.
MdbK [outside]
Our MdbK [outside] format shows all art lovers in Leipzig where they can discover works of art in public spaces. Not all works of art from the MdbK collection can be found in the museum building. Attentive walkers can also discover art in the Leipzig city area. Whether the sculpture Bear on a Ball by August Gaul, or Theo Balden's Mother with Child, the installation Basement by Thomas Moecker or Show Face (Man with Mask) by Wolfgang Mattheuer - all these works of art can be found in the immediate vicinity of the museum building. Find out more in our Instagram highlight.
MdbK [guide]
Volume up, eyes closed: During his lifetime, Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) had a tense relationship with the representatives of Düsseldorf landscape painting. From studio scenes to the diverse landscape themes, the exhibition approaches the questions of how Dresden Romanticism was replaced by Duesseldorf painting and what social causes underlay this change in taste. Don't miss the exhibition (acoustically). You can listen to the MdbK [guide] on Soundcloud in German and English.
On Soundcloud you can also find the audio guide to Andreas Gursky and the exhibition 1950-1980. Photography from Leipzig.
Digital school
With the art mediation padlet, the MdbK offers a digital platform for all ages and grades with background information and instructions for action. The padlet can be used for preparation or as a follow-up. You can view the padlet here. (Note: You will be redirected to the external server of padlet.com)
MdbK [make]
The MdbK [make] format invites the whole family to engage artistically with object of everyday-life. This includes, for example, a self-staging inspired by Evelyn Richter's self-portrait. You can also get ideas from photo artist Andreas Gursky. For example, by using a superzoom - the photo motifs taken extremely close are depicted in such an alienated way that they are difficult to recognise. Find even more inspiring ideas in our Instagram highlight.
Speck von Sternburg Collection online
The cosmopolitan merchant Maximilian Freiherr Speck von Sternburg (1776 - 1856), one of the founding fathers of the museum, was a passionate collector of paintings, drawings, prints and books. Thanks to the negotiating skills and perseverance of his descendants, represented by Wolf-Dietrich Speck von Sternburg and Ilse Speck von Sternburg (1910 - 2012), his collection, consisting of 202 paintings, 127 drawings, 192 prints, was handed over to the City of Leipzig on permanent loan as the "Maximilian Speck von Sternburg Foundation" on 12 November 1996.
Maximilian Speck von Sternburg - appointed Knight von Speck in 1825 and Baron von Sternburg in 1828 - was an art lover. On his numerous business trips, which took him all over Europe from 1801 onwards, he visited galleries, museums and art academies as well as trading partners and began collecting paintings in 1807. The merchant became a passionate art collector who, in addition to the representative character, also sought the satisfaction of his aesthetic preferences. Thus he specifically purchased works from important aristocratic collections of the time, such as those of Heinrich XLIII, Prince Reuß zu Köstritz, Moritz Christian Johann Reichsgraf von Fries and from important middle-class collections, such as that of the Leipzig councillor and banker Gottfried Winckler.
At the same time, Speck von Sternburg acquired works by contemporary artists such as Friedrich von Amerling, Johan Christian Clausen Dahl and Caspar David Friedrich, who were active at the Dresden Academy. In building up his private collection, he pursued the ambitious goal of creating a representative overview of the most important art movements since the Renaissance. In the case of Italian, French and Dutch works, he concentrated primarily on artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. His passion for collecting graphic art placed a special focus on the years 1812 to 1827.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the foundation, the MdbK is presenting a selection of rarely shown and outstanding paintings, graphics and drawings in an anniversary exhibition. The entire collection can be viewed online.
