325 Years Akademie der Künste

“Academy is a word that means an assembly of artists, who gather at a location assigned to them at certain times for the purpose of communicating their art in a friendly manner, sharing endeavours, insights and experiences, and learning from one another as they attempt to approach perfection.”

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts from 1784. He wrote his Magna Carta of the artist society in 1783.

Calendar Pages

The Akademie der Künste is taking its 325th anniversary as an opportunity to remember and to examine the current situation. In the form of calendar pages, events that have shaped the life of the artistic community are highlighted as caesuras or offer snapshots of its history. Members and staff take individual calendar days as opportunities to look back.

Deutsche Akademie der Künste, Robert-Koch-Platz 7, 1973. Photo: Christian Kraushaar @ Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Archives

The history of the Akademie der Künste is not straightforward, but rather is punctuated by drama and change. It is marked by the transformation of an educational establishment into an international community of artists, by new departures and perseverance, by appropriation by the state and the claim to self-administration, as well as by discourses on the arts. The Akademie is taking its 325th anniversary as an opportunity to look back on the past and examine the present.

Calendar Pages will highlight watershed moments in the life of this community of artists and offer snapshots of its history. These include outstanding events such as the founding of the Academy on 11 July 1696, the Gleichschaltung, or forced standardisation under the National Socialists, the unification of the Academies in the East and West, and the return to Pariser Platz. But the Calendar Pages will also illuminate events which at first glance might appear unspectacular.

Specific dates provide an opportunity for retrospection by Akademie members and staff. The result is a series of personal miniatures and viewpoints that make no claim to being complete or to constituting a larger picture. The Calendar Pages will be published on the respective dates on the Akademie der Künste website and on its social media channels.

“Each spectator pays 8 groschen at the door, the ladies don’t pay anything.”

The first exhibition of the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1786

“The Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences will begin its public exhibitions of artworks on the 20th of this month”, reads an announcement of May 1786 published in Berlin’s newspapers. The price of the printed catalogue, which also served as the admission ticket, followed a suggestion of the dean at the time, Daniel Chodowiecki: “Each spectator pays 8 groschen at the door, the ladies don’t pay anything.”

Encounters between East and West German members of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin

The thin thread of dialogue between the Academies of Arts in East and West Berlin had never come undone. Interest in the artistic work of their respective counterpart outweighed ideological reservations. On 23 April 1988, nearly 100 members and staff met for discussions that were “driven by the good will to foster understanding”.

From Master Studio to Junge Akademie

Anton von Werner, a renowned German historical painter of the Wilhelminian era (Kaiserzeit), who studied at the Königlich Preussische Akademie der Künste, Berlin (Royal Prussian Academy of Arts) from 1860 to 1862, gives the date of this Calendar Page its particular significance.

Freedom of thought – an existential question for the Akademie. Günter Grass and the “Rushdie case”

It caused quite a stir when Günter Grass, president of the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin from 1983 to 1986, declared his resignation from the institution on 9 March 1989. Efforts to get him to change his mind proved unsuccessful.

The Taboo Break of 1933

In 1933, the Preußische Akademie der Künste (Prussian Academy of Arts) allows itself to be co-opted by the National Socialists without putting up any real resistance. On 15 February – 16 days after the Nazi seizure of power – the new Prussian Minister of Science, Education and National Culture, Reich Commissioner Bernhard Rust, uses a pretext to make an example of Heinrich Mann, director of the Section for Poetry, and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, forcing them out of the Academy.

The 1953 Heinrich Mann Prize and the 17 June Uprising

On 26 March 1953, the Deutsche Akademie der Künste decided to award the newly endowed Heinrich Mann Prize to three authors, Stefan Heym, Wolfgang Harich and Max Zimmering. The prize came into being through a decree issued by the East German government on 16 March 1950, and was intended to honour the memory of Heinrich Mann, the first president of the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin, newly founded the previous year.

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