Material aesthetics and agency:
Alexander Dorner and the stage-managed museum

Sandra Karina Löschke

I intended to show that there are much more profound forces of change
at work in life, which unite past and present in a much intenser way,
than we are accustomed to see. This wholly relative, wholly dynamic
interpenetrative history has a new power to direct us. History indeed is
able to tap a substratum of positive, new – and badly needed – energies
for our conduct of all life, artistic and otherwise. (Dorner 1958: 18)

At stake for the museum in the early 1920s, Alexander Dorner suggested, was
much more than art historical erudition and connoisseurship but the adequate
resolution of the only thing that mattered – “ourselves and our vital problems”
(1958: 147). The purpose of the museum was to aid the improvement of self-
awareness and a deeper understanding of the present situation, he insisted, and
this could only be accomplished if “the energies that, surging up from the past,
have invaded our own lives” (147) were uncovered. It was apparent to him that the
museum would have to utilise “all possible sensory and intellectual resources of
representation” (146) to achieve this aim.

The particular challenge identified by Dorner appeared to be one of method – how
could historical and cultural content be mediated adequately in order to become
relevant for the present? Something beyond scientific organisation and repre-
sentation was at issue – something that materialised immaterial energies that
lay dormant in our cultural heritage and that, once activated, had the capacity to
improve human life and facilitate social progress. It is Dorner’s own curatorial re-
sponse to these challenges that is under investigation in this study, which focuses
on Dorner’s reorganisation of the collections at the Provinzialmuseum Hannover
during the 1920s.

Dorner’s grouping of period works in discrete Atmosphärenräume (atmosphere
rooms)1 and the introduction of an evolutionary itinerary have been considered
conventional and comparable to earlier reorganisation efforts (Flacke 1993: 137;
Klonk 2009: 94; Scholl 1995). Similarly, his concurrent deployment of atmospheric
immersion and an evolutionary itinerary have been seen as incompatible and a
grave inconsistency in his curatorial approach: on one hand, the audience’s iden-
tification with an epoch precludes the possibility of a continuous consciousness
– the viewer is expected to empathise; on the other hand, it is precisely the cog-
nition of a historic continuity that is evoked with the realisation of a concept of
historic development (Flacke-Knoch 1986/87: 137).

Counter to these arguments, this study suggests that it is possible to attain a more
nuanced reading of Dorner’s strategies by pursuing a detailed analysis of elements
of his curatorial practice – in particular, central display elements such as the use
of wall colour and reframing. When unravelled in relation to his museum guide-
books and other information material, his practice emerges as a calculated staging
of intellectual insights and sensory impressions. However subtle, Dorner’s strate-
gies marked a turning point in the presentation of artworks in museums by going
beyond issues of representation and taste that governed the work of his peers.2

His stage-managed environments transformed the way the audience interrelated

1 Dorner used the term atmosphere
room to describe the grouping of artworks
from historic periods/styles in discrete
rooms. Unlike period rooms, these were not
stylistically homogenous. They were given an
identity through colourful appointment and
fitted with modern furniture and everyday
objects to reflect the self-understanding and
spatial conceptions of their respective time
as seen from a present perspective. See
Dorner 1924.

2 For a discussion of Dorner’s curatorial
work in the wider context of other museum
re-organisations see Scholl 1995; Flacke 1993.

INTERSTICES 14

with the art objects presented to them – a material dialectic intended to promote
empathy and immersion whilst simultaneously encouraging active reception and
awareness of reality.

The state of German museums in the early 1920s:
Excess and disorientation

Having spent his early years at the Provinzialmuseum cataloguing the drawing
and painting collections as a research assistant, Dorner had formed a compre-
hensive idea about the museum’s holdings when he began to restructure the
collections and gallery spaces of the Provinzialmuseum in 1923. At the time, the
collections were still in a state of disarray. More reminiscent of a curiosity cabinet
than an art collection, the Provinzialmuseum was described by staff as a “trash
room” (Flacke 1992: 51) where one could find an altar next to a stuffed boar and a
painting. The museum’s “high walls”, as Dorner later observed, “threatened to col-
lapse under the load of the good and the bad” (Katenhusen 1993: 71).

As a consequence of complex ownership structures and loan agreements (see Cau-
man 1958: 30-31), the Provinzialmuseum functioned essentially as a depository
for an array of diverse objects that were exhibited as singular items without mean-
ingful interrelations – a “loose aggregate”, as Dorner termed it (1958: 16).3 Visitors
found themselves not only overwhelmed by the plethora of objects on display, but
also entirely left to their own devices in engaging in a meaningful way with the
diverse exhibits they had encountered.

The situation in Hannover was symptomatic of the wider museum landscape at
the time that was caught between tradition and rapid change (Mai 2010: 365). Mu-
seum reform efforts had already commenced in the 1880s (Joachimides 2001), but
in the more radicalised political climate of the early Weimar republic, the call for
“the activation of museums as educational establishments for the people” (Taut
1918) grew louder. The museum, increasingly regarded as a predominantly edu-
cational institution, had to leave behind its passive position and engage in what
Dorner described as an active museum practice, whose primary goal was to find
new ways to evaluate art collections for the general public – ways that would make
art historical developments not only visible but comprehensible (see Dorner 1924).
This active practice meant a shift of attention from the representation of objects to
the mediation of ideas inherent in these objects.

Dorner’s Raumbild concept

According to Dorner, art and culture were primarily manifestations of the preva-
lent historic conceptions of space and thus represented immediate expressions of
how people conceived of themselves as being in space and time, and in relation
to objects and one another. Thus for Dorner, the history of art and architecture
mapped the history of human relations to space and materialised the image of
self that was formed in relation to it. Thematised under the heading of Raum-
bild,4 the idea of historically evolving space-time relations was highly implicated
in Dorner’s curatorial work. Literally translated as both spatialised image and im-
age of space, the notion of Raumbild resides between object and image, between
the perceived and the imagined, between the material and the immaterial. In the
same way that a Raumbild could be articulated in an artwork, its underlying con-
cept could also be rematerialised as part of the exhibition room. The Raumbild’s
fluctuation between image and space can be seen as the enabling assumption for
Dorner’s curatorial practice.

3 Owners often insisted on the separate
display of their collections. They often
resisted the relegation of qualitatively
less valuable works to “study collections”
forcing museums to display the entire
collection. See Alexander Dorner's
proposal for a re-organisation of the Duke of
Cumberland's collections, dated 3 April 1923.
(Niedersachsisches Landersarchiv: Hann.152
ACC. 2006/013 Nr.1)

4 In the English-language publication of his
book The way beyond ‘art’, which summarises
his life’s work both as an art historian and as a
museum director, Dorner described the idea
of Raumbild more loosely as “reality concept”
(1958: 17).

Dorner’s concern with changing and increasingly dynamic concepts of space can
be traced throughout his writings, in which he developed an extensive vocabulary
around this theme. In his 1923 publication Die Romanische Baukunst in Sachsen
und Westfalen (Roman Architecture in Saxony and Westphalia), the changing in-
terrelations between Baukörper (built object), and Raum (space) towards their
equilibrium in the concept of Raumbau (space building) were explored as the
decisive aspect in the transition from the Roman to the Gothic Raumbild. The ac-
centuation of the built object customary in Roman art, Dorner noted, was reversed
in Westphalian Gothic where space assumed an all-embracing unity and “the built
object recede[d] into the background as subservient” (1923: 9). This shift in empha-
sis from object to space was paralleled in the sensory impressions imparted by the
architecture – the sense of “expansion and calm” apparent in Roman architecture
was replaced with “intensity and movement” in Gothic architecture (8).5

Dorner’s correlation of spatial and empathic conditions is not new and can be
linked to his self-confessed partisanship of Alois Riegl – an enthusiasm he devel-
oped during his studies in Berlin under Adolph Goldschmidt (Dorner 1958: 15). In
a series of lectures on the origins of Baroque art in Rome, Riegl had advanced a
parallelism between Tiefraum (deep space) and Empfindung (sensation) that he
termed Raumwirkung (spatial effect) (1908: 43). Observing a tendency to only look
at the physical in architecture, Riegl suggested that beyond architectural com-
position, buildings also had a psychological effect upon us. In other words, it was
possible for the viewer to receive sensory impressions from the building that point-
ed to an intimate relationship between architectural composition and reception.

Exclusively focused on historic art, Riegl’s art philosophy did not offer a model
for the art and life of the present. Thus when it came to dealing with the inclu-
sion of contemporary art, Dorner found that he could not rely on Riegl to provide a
theoretical basis for the museum re-organisation and the practical curatorial chal-
lenges at hand (see Dorner 1958: 16).

Inspired by the dynamic space-time experiences of the modern world, many of the
avant-garde works Dorner acquired for the museum were informed by the emerg-
ing imagination of a four-dimensional space prompted by scientific discoveries
(the discovery of x-rays, electricity, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and other sci-
entific advances) and promoted radical ideas based upon energetic interrelations
between human beings and their environment (see Henderson 1990). In Dorner’s
own words:

We feel that the capture of our environment from a rigid, fixed stand-
point, as in the perspectival image construction, results in a constricted
space stage (Raumbühne) with massive scenery… captured only in front
elevation which no longer correlates to the expansiveness of the space in
which we move. (ca. 1926: 2)

To support a wider understanding of contemporary art and its promotion of a new
Raumbild, Dorner set out to materialise the dynamic interrelations that inspired
these works and make them comprehensible as part of a larger historic development.

5 Yet the central problem of Raumbau
(space building), Dorner suggested, was not
fully addressed in German Renaissance
architecture; only Italian Renaissance
architecture resolved “the problem of the
equal confluence of Einheitsraum (unified
space) and Einheitsmasse (uniform mass)”
(1923: 10).

INTERSTICES 14

Materialising the energies of the past:
An intensely integrated knowledge

In an article Was sollen heute Kunst-Museen?, published in 1924, Dorner outlined
the experiential and intellectual objectives for this curatorial strategy, which he
summarised under the heading of atmosphere rooms.

The emotional objectives for the spatial arrangement of artworks were:

1. To display the individual artwork in its context in such a way that it
exerts the greatest possible emotional effect.

2. In addition, the individual periods of art development should be medi-
ated to the visitor emotionally. Through this uniformity he receives the
impression of clarity and through that the feeling of stability and calm.

3. Finally, this clearly-represented sequence of art periods shall be ex-
perienced as a whole - in their transition and in the consequences of
their change. (Dorner 1924)

To frame these emotional encounters, accompanying textual information was
required:

1. Each individual artwork must be explained in its provenance, subject
matter of its pictorial representation, and the uniqueness of its style;

2. Each artistic period must be explained in its historical facts and the
achievements of its style, and;

3. The entire development of art has to be revealed as a consistent se-
quence of styles, that build upon another, so that the entirety will be a
survey of the growth and advancement of the human spirit in the area
of the plastic arts. (Dorner 1924)

In his dual focus, Dorner judiciously recognised the degree to which a re-organisa-
tion could not simply be understood as a straightforward application of scientific
and aesthetic criteria to the existing collection, but that some form of synthesis of
intellectual and sensory impressions had to occur to engage new audiences. The
two elements – the implicit knowledge gained through emotional experience and
the explicit knowledge acquired by reading – had to be “co-ordinated as smoothly
as possible” (Dorner 1925: 4). Dorner did not provide much information about a rig-
orous methodology behind the translation of his objectives into specific curatorial
choices, nor did he refer to other curatorial models or scientific research on colour
or perception. Taking its clues from the above objectives, the following analysis
will investigate Dorner’s curatorial interventions and how they can be related to
the intended emotional and intellectual effects.

‘Unframing’ artworks: The immersion of the viewer

The first objective outlined in Dorner’s article requested the isolation of the artwork
for maximum emotional intensity. Primarily, this meant a significant reduction of
the number of paintings to be hung on the wall space either as single-tiered hang-
ings or other discrete arrangements – a form of display that was already practiced
in Germany at the time. Widely-spaced and mounted at eye level, generally only one
artwork occupied the visual field of the viewer, confronting him one-to-one. Once
isolated, paintings were re-framed. Similar efforts had been undertaken previous-
ly by Wilhelm Bode and Ludwig Justi, both of whom abandoned elaborate, gilded
frames in favour of simple, modern ones that enhanced the colours and aesthetic of
the painting (Klonk 2009: 238).6 In contrast, Dorner’s reframing strategies revealed

his disinterest in the aesthetic considerations of his colleagues, and instead high-
lighted his attempts to reconfigure frames as conceptual devices that materialised
historic conceptions of space by evoking architectural effects. This translation of
an artistic Raumbild into an actual architectural arrangement is most clearly dem-
onstrated in his treatment of paintings from major historic periods. In particular,
the works of the Italian Renaissance and the Dutch Baroque which were well repre-
sented in the collections and whose underlying spatial logic was discussed in detail
in Dorner’s museum guide books. They were exemplary for his use of sophisticated
framing detail to attain spatial impact, set these styles apart from their predeces-
sors, or highlight regional differences.

The Italian Renaissance paintings were discussed at the beginning of Part II of
Dorner’s museum guide which covered the period “From the Renaissance to 1800”
(1930, part II: 1). Focussing on ”the registration of external appearance” (1927: 10),
Dorner suggested that these works represented a decisive break with the medieval
desire to reflect what was spiritual and hence beyond sensory perception. To him,
Renaissance art almost signified a reversal of medieval conceptions of space – a
turning point when “the capture of space became the artistic objective [and] the
invention of perspective … made it possible to portray bodies and all other objects
clearly delimited in space [both] in their full plasticity and in their relations to one
another” (10). The increasing importance of space and nature during the Renais-
sance period, as Dorner understood, was clearly articulated in its documentation
of “the factual matter of the visible world with sharp outlines and hard and clear
colours” (ca.1930, part II: 1). The absolute viewpoint of the Renaissance Raumbild
captured space as the homogenous expansion of three-dimensional volumes –
clearly defined solitaires layered and overlapping – and this, Dorner claimed, not
only instigated a break with medieval spatial imagination, but more importantly,
represented the prevalent conception of space valid up until the then-present day.
In this pervasive Raumbild “the image is a view out of a window; the picture frame
represents a window frame; the segment of [depicted] space lies in front of us like
a stage seen from a fixed viewpoint” (Dorner 1932: 30). Even film, as Dorner later
noted, had not been able to free itself from “the disadvantage, that it always gener-
ates perspectival images of space” (1932: 37).

To translate this emphasis on cubic space and geometric volumes at the level of
the exhibition space, Dorner selected frames that looked like window frames (al-
beit modern ones).7 Intended to simulate openings in the walls of the room, the
paintings were integrated as architectural elements to evoke in the viewer the im-
pression of looking out through a window onto a stage set (see Flacke-Knock 1985:
52; Cauman 1958: 89), prescribing a statically defined position for the visitor, and
materialising the Renaissance Raumbild as a viewing experience.

In contrast to his intense emphasis on frames in the Renaissance rooms, Dorner
abandoned them almost entirely for the Baroque paintings of the Dutch by select-
ing a black-brown colour to match the edge colour of the canvases. He believed
that in Dutch Baroque, the perspectival frame of the Renaissance was “fused to-
gether … to form a total unity of space and physical masses” (ca 1930, part II: 12).
To attain this homogenising spatial effect, the Dutch painters developed two main
innovations that fundamentally transformed the geometric Raumbild of the previ-
ous period. According to Dorner, “tone [was] one of the means, with which Dutch
art achieve[d] its new, big effects ... light-dark contrast [was] the second”(8). Mas-
ters like Rembrandt and his pupils synthesised these two techniques to achieve
maximum impact. In their paintings, they sought to capture the forms of figures
and objects through a variation of the degree of tonality within the brown overall

6 During his relatively short time as
Director of the Städel in Frankfurt, Ludwig
Justi reframed extensively, a practice he
had learned during his time in Berlin as an
assistant to Wilhelm Bode. The reference to
Bode’s reframing practices is mentioned in
Klonk 2009: 238, note 68.

7 It should be noted that in principle this
treatment reflected Renaissance practices
whereby frames were “invariably designed
as parts of an architectural interior and were
frequently meant to harmonize with door
and window surrounds”. Paintings were often
mounted in tabernacle frames that were
in keeping with the architectural styles of
Gothic cathedrals and elevated the picture
from the wall. Styles ranged from elaborate
to simple depending on the specifications of
clients. Later, Renaissance paintings were
frequently re-framed to match the interiors of
their owners. See Newbery, Bisacca & Kanter
1990:11.

INTERSTICES 14

colour of the painting that could be lightened completely to attain white, or dark-
ened to attain black, as Dorner observed (8).

But it was in the fusion of spatial layers that Dorner saw Dutch painting’s fun-
damental departure from the geometric Raumbild of the Renaissance which, he
believed, still persisted in the Baroque paintings of the neighbouring Flemish
provinces. In the paintings of the Dutch, the objects in the foreground gradually
disappear in darkness towards the edges, leaving behind the three-partite struc-
ture of foreground, middleground and background still favoured by the Flemish.
For Dorner, this effect signalled that, apart from “the unsurmountable synthesis of
plasticity and spatiality, the idea of something unbounded and infinite arises” (8).
The two innovations of the Dutch - tonal gradient and contrast – permitted them
to step from the “stage set to unbounded scenery” (6). And although their art dealt
with similar issues than the neighbouring Flemish, it is this unlimited conception
of space that “allow[ed] them to go further”, and that made them appear “more
modern” (7) from the perspective of the fluid space-time conceptions of the pres-
ent, he observed.

With the re-framing of the paintings of the Italian Renaissance and the Dutch
Baroque, Dorner achieved two effects: first, the spatial concepts present in respec-
tive art periods were transferred with ease onto the actual space of the museum.
In attempting to reproduce the Baroque techniques of contrast and gradient, or
the Renaissance conception of geometrically framed space in the relationship
between painting and wall, he paid particular attention to details that extended
the geometric and visual systems of a period to the design of the exhibition space,
and reproduced painterly concepts as room-embracing aesthetic systems. Since
all art was regarded by Dorner as a direct articulation of a particular Raumbild,
both painting and curatorial practice could be thought of as spatial practices that
worked with identical ‘building materials’ – colour, light, tonality, contrast, vol-
ume, geometry. By materialising the concepts of painting within the arena of the
museum space, a Raumbild could be experienced at the scale of the room, at one
glance, upon entering, and without perceiving anything in detail.

Second, in blending the frame colour with the colour of the painting’s perimeter,
Dorner ‘unframed’ the Dutch paintings, extending the pictorial space beyond
the frame and into the sphere of the viewers.8 Equally, we can speak of ‘unfram-
ing’ when the Renaissance picture frame became dissociated from the artwork
and re-associated with the exhibition architecture as a window frame, effectively
turning the painting into a ‘view’. The anthropomorphising effect caused by the
immediate encounter with the unframed works is comparable to that of earlier op-
tical devices such as panoramas and dioramas which equally “cancelled the visual
distance and made the viewer feel that he was right inside the picture” (Schivel-
busch 1995: 217). Sloterdijk closely associated this method of ‘unframing’ with the
phenomena of artificial immersion whose core aspect “is the potential replace-
ment of whole environments – not only of the images, usually framed, one looks
at in galleries. Immersion as a method unframes images and vistas, dissolving
the boundaries with their environment” (2011 (2006): 105). In paying particular
attention to the perceptual details of his display techniques, Dorner attempted to
engage with the psycho-perceptual ideas also promoted by avant-garde and com-
mercial art of his day and provided familiar connection points for new audiences.
In subtle ways, the unframing techniques deployed by Dorner address what Mar-
garete Vöhringer described as the “the technological access of the human psyche”
explored by the avant garde and science at this time (Vöhringer 2007: 20).

8 It is possible to imagine that Dorner
could have discarded frames entirely and
matched the dark edges of the paintings with
a black wall colour, which would have achieved
an even greater sense of unboundedness.
However, in the absence of electrical lighting
at the Provinzialmusem at the time, a black
wall might have darkened the rooms to an
unacceptable degree.

Fig.1 Alexander Dorner. Room for Italian
Renaissance art after its reorganisation
[photograph courtesy of Niedersäch-
sisches Landesmuseum Hannover -
Landesgalerie].

Fig.2 Alexander Dorner. Room for Dutch
Baroque art after its reorganisation
[photograph courtesy of Niedersäch-
sisches Landesmuseum Hannover -
Landesgalerie].

Fig.3 Alexander Dorner. Room for Flem-
ish Baroque art after its reorganisation
[photograph courtesy of Niedersäch-
sisches Landesmuseum Hannover -
Landesgalerie].

INTERSTICES 14

Colour – The activation of the viewer

The second objective was implemented at the scale of the gallery room and re-
quired the emotional mediation of “individual art periods by creating a clear
impression and a sense of calm” (Dorner 1924). For this, Dorner used room-spe-
cific wall colours to create the setting against which all other elements were to be
staged. Steeped in a uniform hue, the rooms intensified the spatial effects impart-
ed by the artworks. By formally organising rooms and their contents as unified
milieus, a harmonised context was provided for each period or style. Apart from
its formalising function, Dorner also assigned an “activating effect” to colour and
employed it as a sensory aid for the instruction of inexpert viewers:

A more passive attitude is seen in galleries where works of art are al-
lowed to “speak for themselves” through being placed, in all their wealth
of stylistic variety, against neutral backgrounds. This treatment is more
satisfying to the scholar or specialist, who often resists intrusion of a
museum director’s philosophy, than it is to the general public, which wel-
comes such intervention as a help towards understanding. But the work
of art isolated by its neutral background is a fish out of water. The more
passive the attitude, it appears, the more likely the museum to revert to
the uniform enfilades of the academic galleries. (Cauman 1958: 83)

It is important to note that Dorner’s colour choices were unrelated to the co-
lour preferences of period interiors (although sometimes his choices coincided)
(Flacke-Knoch 1986/87: 135). Instead, he abandoned attempts at objective-his-
torical registration in favour of an entirely interpretive history focussed on the
evolution of concepts of space. These ideas represented a distinct break with the
period room, a widely used display model, which aimed at a truthful reconstruc-
tion of historic spaces with furnishings that corresponded to the prevalent historic
style of a period.

The use of colour in the context of exhibitions was not unusual at the time, and
Monika Flacke-Knoch suggested that it is possible that Dorner was inspired by
comparable efforts at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg by Max
Sauerlandt (1986/87: 145 note 95), who had introduced colour to represent a pe-
riod’s predominant attitude towards life (Klonk 2009: 94). Sauerlandt’s colourful
appointment of the Hamburg rooms intended to epitomise the specific weight of
the period’s spiritual timing. Thus, medieval art was shown against a dark blue
background accentuating religious seriousness and Baroque art against deep red
brown emphasising its splendour. In these instances, correspondences between
Sauerlandt’s and Dorner’s respective colour schemes can be observed. In other
instances, however, substantial differences can be detected, particularly in their
respective treatments of rooms for Renaissance art, where Dorner used cool whites
and greys to represent the sober, geometric character of Renaissance art (Cauman
1958: 89) which contrasts with Sauerlandt’s use of an energetic, golden yellow to
represent manly, worldly joy (Klonk 2009: 94). But more importantly, fundamental
differences in intent can be noted. Dorner’s main concern lay in materialising the
evolution of the Raumbild as spatial experiences. In that, he differed from Sauer-
landt’s representative approach that regarded art as the result of the artist’s “urge
to plastically shape inexpressible feelings” to which a larger “symbolic signifi-
cance for the feeling of an epoch” was assigned (Sauerlandt 1921: 11). Sauerlandt’s
plans for the addition of fragrances and music to complete the impression of the
artworks too, contrasted with Dorner’s much more pragmatic idea of disseminat-
ing information via radio broadcasts transmitted by loud speakers (Flacke-Knock
1986/87: 125).

Dorner’s striking arrangements of a few paintings against a surface of continuous
colour created a saturated ambiance that pervaded the room – something the visi-
tor would absorb at a glance. This idea of a “total overview” is evident in Dorner’s
resolve to minimise distractions so that nothing would disturb the atmospheric
impact of the space and the immediate formation of a mental image. Everything
was kept simple – all elements of the room were subordinated to the larger logic of
the atmospheric image. Black linoleum floors minimised the reflection of daylight.
Simple custom-designed benches and modern chairs were executed in a black co-
lour to visually merge with the linoleum floors. Designed as low as possible and
positioned at the centre of the rooms and at maximum distance from the paint-
ings, these furnishings minimised any interference with the viewing experience.
Thus the entire horizontal plane was dematerialised and in its “blackness” almost
receded from sight. In the vertical plane, windows were covered with opaque cur-
tains in wall colours to regulate the light, avoid glare and keep out distracting
views to the outside world as much as possible, so that these would not compete
with the paintings (Cauman 1958: 90-91). With these calculated manipulations,
Dorner attained complete control over the internal environment, encouraging the
viewer’s identification with the themed environment. In contrast, other manipula-
tions were introduced to the opposite effect.

Back and forth –
Atmospheric immersion and awareness of reality

Reviewing the development of space from the Renaissance to the present in his
1934 article Die neue Raumvorstellung in der Bildenden Kunst (The new Imagination
of Space in the Plastic Arts), Dorner concluded that the idea of a four-dimension-
al space and, with it, the “demonstration of a new experience of reality”(37), was
most adequately captured with the animating effect and flowing change of per-
spective in film. It is through this lens that Dorner understood his historical
re-organisation of the entire museum, where “a walk through the art collections
of the museum unrolls the almost complete development of art from the year
1000 up until our day, and in beholding the artworks, we experience the great

Fig.4 Alexander Dorner. Custom-de-
signed bench in the room for Expres-
sionist art after its reorganisation
[photograph courtesy of Niedersäch-
sisches Landesmuseum Hannover -
Landesgalerie].

INTERSTICES 14

transformations that have occurred in such profound ways” (Dorner 1927: 9). In us-
ing the term “unroll” (“entrollen”), Dorner hinted at a perceived analogy between
museum experience and modern film.

Indeed, the Provinzialmuseum’s carefully edited itinerary emerged as a suc-
cession of differentiated experiences that no longer provided continuity in the
fashion of traditional museum narratives. Dorner’s careful staging of the gallery
spaces provided a sequence of emotional experiences intended to amplify har-
mony and continuity between different periods on one hand and conflicts and
discontinuity on the other hand: in the museum guidebook and other information
material, Dorner eliminated potential feelings of ambiguity by making the viewer
aware of intended juxtapositions. For example, right upon entering the first room
of the art collections, the viewer is alerted about the antagonistic relationship of
antique and medieval art: “With the memory of a Greek marble statue, we enter
the Romanic hall (1), here we are face to face with a spirit, that relates to antiquity
like fire with water.” (Dorner ca. 1930, Part 1: 2) Similarly, the fundamental differ-
ences between regional variations of Baroque art were evoked together with the
contrasting colours and emotions of the respective exhibitions spaces. Augment-
ing these contrasts, Dorner takes the viewer by the hand, noting:

When we move from the red room of the Flemish into the light grey room
of the Dutch, then we come from a magnificent festivity to a silence that
is solemn but not gloomy. There are rarely more striking contrasts, and
yet both are Baroque. (Dorner ca. 1930, Part 2: 7)

Fig.5 Alexander Dorner. Poster in co-
loured paper hung in doorway between
exhibition rooms. [Illustration by
author; text translated from German (see
Katenhusen & Reuning 1993:27).

In addition to the colours and the information provided in guide books, other for-
mal and informal devices underlined the respective distinctness or relatedness of
rooms and their art. Between contrasting rooms, colour-matched door curtains
separated different rooms as discrete milieus and these had to be drawn open
upon leaving and entering (see Cauman 1958: 91). Interrupting the viewer’s histor-
ic identification with a period and foreshadowing change, the curtains functioned
as instruments for physical and mental activation. This rupture was augmented
by small coloured posters with slogans which were mounted in door openings be-
tween rooms. These addressed the viewer directly and gave instructions:

Do not regard this art as in competition with the art of our time; it was
created under completely different conditions, but has advanced beyond
the art of the previous period in its conception. Please consider this and
then look at the exhibition… (Alexander Dorner). (See Katenhusen & Re-
uning 1993: 27; Cauman 1958: 93)9

Together, door curtains and posters prompted the viewer’s awareness of real-
ity by interrupting the illusory, immersive experience of the atmosphere room.
The short slogans complemented the intermittent “sequential locomotion” (Ben-
nett 1995: 43) necessitated by the consecutive arrangement of rooms and offered
a form of immediate reading that alluded to the graphic language of mass media
encountered in everyday life. Looking back at this strategy 30 years later, Dorner
observed: “I can see quite clearly today that my innovations, which involved the
arrangement of objects, lettering, etc., were designed to introduce the concepts of
modern science into the humane study of art history” (1958: 17).10

The experiential changes along the sequence of atmosphere rooms can be com-
pared with what Sloterdijk has described as bathing in alternating pools:

One cannot plunge into an empire’s psycho-semantic immersive context
without participating in its history. In this sense history is nothing but
a diving tank shared with cavorting fellow swimmers, and what is com-
monly called participation is, seen in this light, merely a naïve dipping

Fig.6 Alexander Dorner. Ramberg
Room after its reorganisation showing
door curtains [photograph courtesy of
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Han-
nover - Landesgalerie].

9 Cauman mentions the poster text as
the last page of a colourful “gallery book”
that replaced the earlier guidebook (1958:
93). In contrast, in the exhibition catalogue
“überwindung der ‘kunst’ - Zum 100.
Geburtstag des Kunsthistorikers Alexander
Dorner (Hannover, Germany: Sprengel
Museum Hannover, 1993: 27), this text is
mentioned as an example of a poster hung in
the door openings of the atmosphere rooms.
Dorner’s own notes on the re-organisation
mention boxes with notes that would be hung
in the door openings (Notizen zur Neuordung
Juli 1924, in: Archiv Sprengel Museum
Hannover (cited in Flacke 1992: 52).

10 With Dorner’s growing collaboration
with avant-garde artists and the
Bauhaus, the Provinzialmuseum became
increasingly implicated in the rise of
modern display tactics used in commercial
exhibitions, advertising and film, and the
associated interest in psycho-perceptual
experimentation. These fields of interest
had increasingly moved to the forefront
of Dorner’s thinking from the early 1920s
onward and can be traced in his atmosphere
room concept, which, as this study suggests,
foreshadowed the interactive environments
commissioned by Dorner during the later
stages of his re-organisation work from 1926
onward: first, El Lissitzky’s Abstract Cabinet
in 1927, a display environment, where multi-
coloured striated walls in modern industrial
materials, movable paintings and coloured
lighting provided dynamic spatial experiences
for the viewer; and second, Moholy-Nagy’s
unrealised multi-media environment – the
“Room of the Present” – in which film and
photography completely replaced traditional
art works (see Gebert & Hemken 2009).

Lissitzky’s demonstrationrooms – the
Abstract Cabinet and an earlier version,
the Room for Constructivist Art at the
Internationale Kunstausstellung Dresden
1926, have been discussed in detail by
numerous authors. In particular see Giedion
1929: 103-106; Gough 2003: 77-128; Hemken
1990: 46-55; Bois 1988: 160-181.

INTERSTICES 14

into a one-dimensional context (while so-called critique can only be
learnt through immersive changes, through bathing in alternating pools
or contexts). (2011 (2006):105)

In the back and forth between immersion and self-awareness, Dorner recognised
the phenomenon of what he referred to as “an evolutionary psychology in action”
(Cauman 1958: 88). The alternation between empathic identification on one hand,
and rational recognition of reality on the other hand, materialised as the actual in-
novation of Dorner’s curatorial ethos. With it, he recast fundamental assumptions
about the reception of art as either rational (via distanced contemplation and vi-
sual) or empathic (via experiential immersion and haptic) by providing immersive
changes and interruptions that encouraged a critical reception rather than the de-
livery of pre-mediated content.

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Translations from German by author unless otherwise indicated.