Tag: Cologne

Without verging too much into the political, the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne is clearly trying to do something serious and in very many ways admirable. It does not want to be an old ethnographic museum that simply places objects in cases and invites visitors to gawp at them as though the wider history of colonialism, collecting and cultural power were of no consequence. That instinct is sensible, and probably necessary. There is a genuine effort to reinterpret the collection, to question how objects arrived in Europe, and to push visitors into thinking about who gets to tell these stories. On paper, that is all rather noble. In practice though the museum perhaps sometimes feels so anxious about the moral framing that it risks becoming slightly stiff and over-managed, as though it no longer quite trusts the objects to speak for themselves.

For all the language of reinterpretation, there remain plenty of fairly conventional displays of artefacts in cases in the first few rooms, presented in a manner that would not have seemed wildly unfamiliar in a much older museum. That in itself is not a problem and is no doubt deliberate as part of the story that they wish to tell about the evolution of the museum.

The collection is interesting, although the display labels are not very clear visually, and there is nothing shameful about displaying it properly and giving people the information they came for. But the curatorial voice often seems oddly nervous, almost apologetic, as if the museum is worried that straightforward engagement with the material might be morally suspect unless heavily supervised. The result is perhaps a slightly sub-optimal arrangement in which the institution appears, at moments, to be more comfortable critiquing the existence of its collection than actually helping visitors understand it in a direct and human way.

Museums do not need to pretend that difficult histories are not difficult, but nor do they perhaps need to turn every gallery into a little seminar in correct opinion. At times it feels less like a place eager to share knowledge and more like one slightly embarrassed by its own holdings.

Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg (1547-1601) was the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and enjoyed the kind of job security most would kill for, until he met Agnes von Mansfeld and decided that a Protestant marriage was more convenient for his needs.

In a move that local Catholics found rather sub-optimal, he converted to Calvinism and tried to turn the Archbishopric into a secular family heirloom. This attempt to “have his cake and marry it too” ignored the situation where if you stop believing in a Church’s theology, you might actually want to leave it.

The resulting five year long Cologne War was partly the outcome and Gebhard’s defiance managed to annoy the Pope enough to earn him an excommunication and sparked a continental mess that dragged in Spanish and Dutch armies. Despite his grand ambitions of a secular dynasty, his Protestant allies eventually realised that subsidising a romantic rebellion was a poor investment, leaving Gebhard to flee his burning residence in Bonn.

Gebhard ended his days as a cathedral dean in Strasbourg, a significant step down from Prince-Elector. He’s still buried in Strasbourg cathedral, but his legacy is still relevant because Gebhard failed to transform Cologne into a secular Protestant duchy and so the territory became a vanguard of the Counter-Reformation. The artwork in the photo was painted in 1579 when all was well and before his little relationship issues was one of the reasons that a number of nations started to fight each other.

I had initially thought that this sculpture from the early 1300s had been damaged at some time over the centuries. But, it’s actually a representation of St. Denis. As for this story, St Denis had his head cut off because third century Roman authorities were not especially keen on Christians, which was, from his point of view, rather inconvenient and somewhat sub-optimal. According to the legend, he then picked up his own head and carried on walking, which is an extremely strong commitment to making an entrance and must have come across as very brave. So the skull came off in a martyrdom, but the story became famous because St Denis apparently treated decapitation as more of a setback than a full stop.

The exhibit was moved from the city’s Wallraf-Richartz Museum in 1929 and it was made in Cologne. It’s made from walnut and it looks like the colours were quite vibrant.

I did my usual thing of reverting to AI to see how it might have looked, but ChatGPT wasn’t having any of it. It decided that it was a violent image and noted:

“We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our content policies. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt.”

Google Gemini doesn’t have the same sensitive tendencies, but I think it might have gone a bit full on colour here.

Despite his arms having fallen off, this is St. Peter as apparently he can be identified by his hair. I’d add that I wouldn’t have known that, this is the view of the museum and I have no reason to doubt them.

The museum notes that this was made in the city and was inspired by the Cologne Cathedral sculptors and perhaps this is also from the same building. It dates from between 1315 and 1320 and is made from walnut.

He looks like a cheery soul and this polychrome sculpture is in quite a solid state of repair given its age. It’s a shame that more isn’t known about its provenance and what churches it has likely spent most of its time in, but I doubt that it has been out of Cologne for very long.

And back to AI to show what it might have looked like.

Cologne’s city library offers a practical little “library of things” alongside its books, allowing people to borrow outdoor games and leisure equipment rather than buy them. I think that it’s a rather sensible arrangement, especially for items people may only use occasionally, and it helps turn the library into a wider community resource. A very nice little idea.

There you go, you can borrow:

Boomerang
Boule
Croquet
Tin can throwing game
Cornhole
Hula hoop
Indiaca tennis
Jumping ropes
Skittles
Mölkky
Pedalo Classic
Giant Mikado
Giant bowling game
Slackline
Speedminton set
Quoits / ring toss
Stilts
Throwing game
Twister mat
Viking chess XXL
Ladder golf

I’m not sure that this counts as traditional German cuisine, but there we go. It’s the Drachen City all you can eat Chinese restaurant, although I’m not entirely sure that there was much Chinese about it either.

There was a friendly welcome and the restaurant was quite busy for a Friday afternoon. There’s a reasonably wide selection of different items available, including some more healthier options. The server who took my order came over with a microphone and I wondered if there was some sort of welcome every customer had to make, but it was just him talking to the kitchen about what food needed replacing.

This is the Gaffel Kölsch served in entirely the wrong glass, but I don’t think that it would have made much difference. The beer was clean, light and uninspiring, but at least it didn’t intrude on the flavours of the food.

I don’t claim to be classy, as that heap of noodles, spring rolls, battered chicken, chicken skewers and green beans shows. It all tasted fine, nothing exceptional, but perfectly acceptable. They had overdone the salt though, although perhaps if I hadn’t had three platefuls then I might not have noticed.

There was never any depth of spice to the food, although one of the sauces that I piled up had some heat which placated me somewhat. There was quite a focus on chicken above all other meats, but that is something that is fine for me. As another plus, as the food was constantly replaced it was all hot and nothing looked like it had been lingering for long.

To balance out the salt, there’s a heap of cherries in a sugary sauce. And some bubblegum ice cream, as that’s definitely a staple item in Shanghai.

The pricing was all very affordable, around £14 for the unlimited food and the customer base seemed primarily local people rather than tourists. The food was replaced promptly and there was also a salad area, but I forgot about that when collecting food.

The restaurant was all clean, efficient and well managed, so I can see why it’s well reviewed online. Although I didn’t get a fortune cookie like the other tables, perhaps my future is so secure I don’t need it impacted by cookies trying to divert fate.

This museum was founded in 1901 based on the private collection of Wilhelm Joest and it has historically functioned as a repository for approximately 60,000 artefacts and 100,000 photographs from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania. In recent years, under a new direction, the museum has moved away from the “cabinet of curiosities” model, instead focusing on decolonisation and restitution. It’s designed to be a ‘woke’ venue, but using the word in a positive manner to be inclusive and to redefine how the collections are shown.

I’m not entirely sure where the museum is going with this, as their website doesn’t explain and I didn’t understand it when it was there. I don’t know whether they mean the museum, the exhibition or the wider global community. I’m assuming they mean that indigenous collections are not rooted in the past, they are still relevant and not part of history.

I think it’s true that some of the museum’s original collection notes from the early twentieth century treated the indigenous exhibits as something which were rather basic and inferior. There was certainly a colonial mindset when this museum was put together.

I’ll be mentioning this a few times, but I found this museum slightly hard work as the curation seemed a little muddled to me. But, understanding is important, so I’ve used AI to try and piece together the messaging the museum was trying to display. I’d add that I’ve scoured the museum’s website, but they haven’t really burdened themselves with explanations, so I’ll have to make them up as best as I can.

ChatGPT comes up with a meaning:

“So the museum piece is probably doing two things at once. It is showing individual posters as graphic art, but it is also recreating the overwhelming feel of seeing them in numbers, as part of a visual environment rather than as one polite framed object. In other words, the installation is preserving something that originally lived on streets, walls and music scenes, and bringing that noisy, popular world into the rather cleaner and more controlled arrangement of a museum gallery. That contrast is part of the point.”

Google Gemini goes with:

“The exhibit also explores the intersection of local struggle and global solidarity, as seen in the juxtaposition of traditional tropical cumbia icons with modern civil rights imagery like the “Black Lives Matter” movement. This layering of meaning transforms the posters from simple concert advertisements into complex political artefacts that advocate for justice and recognition for marginalised communities. By placing these works in a museum context, the display validates a form of “street” aesthetics as a sophisticated language of resistance, proving that the bold, clashing colours are not merely decorative but are essential to the visibility of those who have historically been sidelined by mainstream culture.”

I’m not very artistic and I had to look the word ‘cumbia’ up, but apparently it refers to a number of musical rhythms and folk dance traditions of Latin America.

I’ll go with that, it’s an art form with a political message that is relevant to visitors. It gives visibility to those who perhaps need it the most and it also looks visually appealing in the museum. So there we go, I think that makes sense.