OUT OF THE BOX - Sterre Barentsen

CH What defines the Museum Barberini today as an institution working between a collection, changing exhibitions, and international collaborations?

SB The museum has established itself as a center for Impressionism, with its permanent collection of 115 works of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism – including 40 works by Monet, the largest collection outside Paris in Europe. At the same time, the programme is shaped by three large-scale temporary exhibitions each year, often bringing together more than 100 works from museums and collections around the world – coming up, we have shows on the neo-impressionist Paul Signac, a major Impressionist group show, an exhibition on Barcelona around 1900 and a show on the Parisian artist Marie Laurencin. But beyond these structural aspects, what really defines a visit to the Museum Barberini is a sense of openness and friendliness. The whole team makes a great effort to create an environment that feels welcoming. Excellence can be created through excitement, joy, and enthusiasm and I think this ethos carries through into the exhibitions and everything we do.

CH With the Collection Hasso Plattner as a constant reference point, how do new presentations take shape once works from different institutional and geographical contexts are brought into play?

SB This is something I have been thinking a lot about while preparing for our upcoming 10-year anniversary exhibition, which will open on November 7, 2026. In this show, we are telling ten different stories based on ten Impressionist works from the collection of the Museum Barberini, so: ten works from the collection, ten stories, ten exhibition rooms, together with ca. 80 loans from museums and private collections from all over the world. The exhibition explores the networks behind Impressionism—the stories of the collectors, dealers, patrons, and of course the artists themselves. In preparation, we have done a lot of research on these ten works. We looked at what collections the works were in, which important historical exhibitions they were shown at, and what the contexts were when the artist painted the work. From this a huge network of other artworks emerged, as well as many questions: like who lived in the Palazzi Monet painted when he was in Venice? What happened to Impressionist works in Jewish collections in Germany during World War II? Why did Monet find more success with American private collectors than French museums? What was the first Impressionist work to be shown in Germany? Who were the female collectors of Impressionism? These are questions that can only be understood, not by seeing artworks as isolated masterpieces, but by seeing them as part of a larger network – connected to other works, and to many people who supported the artists. Impressionism becomes less an art style and more a movement that was shaped through collaboration and friendship. It’s very exciting to reunite works from our collection with “sibling” works from all around the world. We have loans coming from New York and Washington to Paris, Tokyo, and São Paulo. Each artwork follows its own path, collecting layers of history as it is exhibited, sold, and acquired. It feels special that our exhibition will become another stop along that journey, temporarily bringing many of these works back together and allowing these historical connections to become visible once again.

CH Works with distinct visual languages and historical backgrounds often come into proximity. What allows them to enter into dialogue in such constellations?

SB This can happen in different ways – through a shared theme, a common subject, similar artistic concerns, or even through contrast. Sometimes artworks are brought together because they respond to similar questions, even if they come from very different contexts. Basically, if it works, it works.

CH Alongside exhibitions, formats such as Music Walks, studio sessions, talks, and Get-together evenings have become part of the institution’s rhythm. What shifts in perspective as these elements begin to actively shape the overall approach?

SB These various formats shift the museum away from being experienced solely as a place of exhibition-viewing and toward becoming a more continuous cultural and social space. With these new formats, we enhance our efforts to welcome all different kinds of people to the museum. Through its wide range of public programs and events, Museum Barberini has become a cultural meeting place in Potsdam for diverse audiences. Initiatives such as the Get-Together evenings that are specifically for students — with extended opening hours, live music, and collaborations with local partners — are designed to engage younger visitors and create a fun and social museum experience specifically for this community. The Music Walks project was developed in collaboration with composer and producer Henrik Schwarz and composer and arranger Zacharias Falkenberg. The project introduced an innovative feature within the Barberini app that guides your visit with music. For each gallery within the collection, atmospheric soundscapes were created that shift dynamically according to the visitor’s movement through the space, responding to parameters such as motion and duration of attention. Using technologies derived from game development, new compositions are generated in real time. In this way, the Barberini app becomes a platform for an intuitive and synesthetic experience of art. But it’s really also just the beginning for us – there is a lot in the pipeline in connection to our 10-year anniversary exhibition and the digital platform Networks of Impressionism that we are launching together with the Wildenstein Plattner Institute and Navigating.art.

CH As presentations extend beyond Impressionism into other art historical contexts, what holds focus together without flattening complexity?

SB Well, it’s true that in the almost ten years that the Museum Barberini has been open, we’ve covered a wide range of art history. Over time, different exhibition strands have developed. One series is closely connected to our permanent collection, with exhibitions on collection artists like Claude Monet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Camille Pissarro, or Paul Signac. Another key strand are our large thematic exhibitions, such as those on the sun or the unicorn in art. We have also developed a focus on abstraction, with exhibitions on Abstract Expressionism and Geometric Abstraction. Despite these differences in topic, there is a recognizable “Barberini stamp.” It’s hard to define exactly – it’s more than just the pastel-colored catalogues and exhibition posters. What really holds the focus together is a consistent curatorial approach: a commitment to making art history both approachable and intellectually rigorous. We place a strong emphasis on creating an environment that feels welcoming and friendly, while at the same time ensuring that our exhibitions are thoroughly researched and conceptually strong. There is an assumption that an exhibition can be either intellectual but niche or approachable but shallow. With each exhibition at the Barberini, we try to show that it can be both. In that sense, focus is not created by limiting the range of topics, but by maintaining this balance.

CH Research informs both selection and translation into space and communication, but at which point does that translation begin to change what is ultimately experienced?

SB A huge part of a curator’s job is making art historical research accessible to a large audience. It’s also the hardest part. The goal is to guide people to look more closely at art, give them the context to allow them to better understand it, and make them feel curious and confident in engaging with art. We put a lot of emphasis on writing wall texts. For each work we exhibit, we write a text – usually just two or three sentences – but each of these texts can take up to an hour, if not more. It’s about deciding what is essential, and helping the viewer see or understand something about the work they might not have otherwise noticed. The language has to stay accessible and avoid jargon. Even though the texts are short, a lot is happening in them. At the same time, an exhibition should also function without the visitor having to read a single word. The works that are placed next to one another, or brought together within the same room, need to communicate something intuitively. When I am designing a hanging, I try to create relationships between works so that within a few seconds of entering a space, visitors can sense what the room is about — even if this happens on a subconscious level. The sequence of exhibition rooms should also unfold as a narrative. Often, when you do not notice the curator’s hand – when nothing feels forced – that is where the greatest amount of selection and deliberation has taken place. Artworks can be transformative, but only if we allow them to work on us. The role of the curator is not to control that experience, but to create the conditions that make it possible and support that process.

CH Set within a historic city palace in Potsdam, how does the architectural environment shape movement, pacing, and experience through the museum?

SB When visitors from abroad come to the museum, I always tell them that the building is only about ten years old – and it usually takes a second for that to register. The original Palais Barberini was built in 1771–72 under Frederick the Great as part of his effort to reshape Potsdam’s Alter Markt into a grand, Roman-inspired square. The façade was modeled after the Roman Palazzo Barberini. Over time, the palace hosted concerts, exhibitions, readings, clubs, a library, and even Potsdam’s first cinema. The building was almost completely destroyed in the 1945 air raid on Potsdam. The ruins were later demolished, and for decades the site remained empty. On a very practical level, it gives us all the benefits of a state-of-the-art museum building, but without the “white cube”. Because of the building’s wings and sequence of rooms, you are often walking into a room and then back out through it again. The return journey becomes just as important as the entrance. This also creates a more democratic experience of the gallery space and visitors are given the opportunity to discover works gradually or return to them a second time from a different perspective.

CH Across collections, collaborations, and public formats, what tensions or questions feel most present in curatorial practice today?

SB We are living in intensely politicized times – I think a few years ago it would have been taboo to say that the museum can be a refuge from politics. Now, I hear the sentiment more and more that people come to the museum to have a space to slow down and get an input that feels positive and nourishing, an escape from the digital noise and troubling politics. Should the museum be a place of politics – or refuge from it? I think like most either/or propositions, it’s almost always both.