September 13, 2006 Source: :
http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=4197 Museum of Art and Goethe-Institut create virtual art exhibit The McMaster Museum of Art and the Goethe-Institut in Toronto are teaming up to create a virtual exhibit to help high school students around the world learn about German culture and language through a unique perspective--artwork. It's a perfect pairing: the McMaster Museum of Art houses one of the largest and most significant collections of German Expressionist art in North America, while the Goethe-Institut is the preeminent cultural institution with 144 centres worldwide. This month, the two institutions will launch a virtual exhibit of art and commentary that will be accessible to teachers of German culture throughout the world for one year. The exhibition includes 30 pieces from McMaster's collection by artists such as Ernst Barlach, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Herman Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. The exhibition runs from Aug. 31, 2006 to Aug. 25, 2007. The virtual exhibition will launch in September 2006 and be available on the Internet for one year to students and educators worldwide. Geared primarily towards a high school level, the website will include: # images of 30 works of German art selected from McMaster's collection # information in both German and English on the artist, work of art, period, links for further investigation # materials for the classroom teacher, ie. Exercises, homework assignments, suggestions for methods of interactive exchange, worksheets. # interactive materials for students The project is the brainchild of Ruth Renters, a past German lecturer at McMaster and current pedagogical liaison coordinator of the Goethe Institut. Renters was inspired to create an educational resource for German teachers after seeing the results of a 2004 questionnaire sent to German teachers across Ontario. The questionnaire revealed a growing need for inexpensive educational resources, materials that focus not only on German languages, but also on German culture and its significance in North America. Carol Podedworny, director and curator of the McMaster Museum of Art, is excited about the project and its far-reaching impact. "Working with the Goethe-Institut gives international recognition to the McMaster Museum of Art, and will spread the museum's influence further," Podedworny says, adding that the web project is a test case for the Museum, an experiment to see the benefits of a virtual exhibit. "We want to see how it works out, to see if our audience expands." The Museum will incorporate what they learn from the Goethe experience with their next project, a collaboration with Mills Library to create a digital archive of their collection. The project would offer library users and those with access to the Internet a peek inside the Museum, its collections and exhibitions. Podedworny says that there are many challenges facing virtual exhibits, such as copyrights, making them challenging to plan. However, she is positive for the future, saying, "Once the kinks are ironed out, we will definitely be seeking out other opportunities to develop our web-based access in the future." For the duration of the Goethe-Institut project, the McMaster Museum of Art will also mount a two-part complementary exhibition that will include the actual works of art and related texts. Sixty images will be displayed in total with 30 pieces exhibited at a time. Due to its fragile nature, artwork on paper can only be displayed for six months. Key partners in this project are Dr. Arpad Sölter, Director of the Goethe Institut Toronto in connection with head office in Munich; Greg Rennick, Education Officer, McMaster Museum of Art, Dr. Alison McQueen, Art History Department at McMaster University and Debra Antoncic, Research Assistant. Consultants from McMaster University and the Hamilton-Wentworth Public School Board have also been engaged. The McMaster Museum of Art will host an opening reception and launch of the website on Thursday, Sept. 14 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. For more information, please visit, www.goethe-mcmaster.com.
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