Kunst auf Lager (“art in storage”)

Alliance for research and safeguarding of arts and culture in museum depots

Culture heritage

Kunst auf Lager (“art in storage”)

Alliance for research and safeguarding of arts and culture in museum depots

While museum visitors flock to large special exhibits and representative exhibition halls, between 40 and 90% of public art collections lie hidden in basements and warehouses. The conditions in these locations are however not always suitable for preserving valuable cultural assets for the future. KUNST AUF LAGER aims to bring this issue to public attention, motivate sponsors, create an alliance and persuade politicians and administrators to invest time and resources in the unseen foundations of museums. 

KUNST AUF LAGER is already leading by example: the alliance currently encompasses 14 private and public institutions, which have been actively engaged in giving a common voice to the development, research and safeguarding of museum storage rooms since February 2014. As part of their individual funding programs, the alliance’s partners have financed approximately 200 investment projects with roughly 20 million Euros. This has enabled not only urgently needed measures in the areas of restoration and conservation, but also improvements to warehousing conditions, cataloguing and scientific analysis of forgotten or neglected cultural assets in public collections. Many valuable objects have thus been made available to the public for the first-time or for new museum presentation or on online portals. 

The KUNST AUF LAGER partners’ funding programs are directed at art museums as well as local, folkloristic, natural science and technical collections.

www.kunst-auf-lager.de