In accordance with the collection assignment, all these works carry a direct or indirect reference to Berlin's changeable history; above and beyond their significance in art history, they create the portrait of a city mirrored in art ‒ something unique throughout the world. Due to limited space, the permanent exhibition can only show a fraction of this collection, so that ca. 95% of the items are inaccessible to the public and remain unknown.
As the museum's centrepiece, previously this collection encompassing 5,000 works has had a pioneering role - within our museum - in the field of digitalisation. Large parts of the collection had been digitalised and registered on the database since 2000. In the meantime, all the objects are exclusively digitally managed.
The present aim of digitalisation is to make all the paintings, sculptures, objects, installations and media works belonging to the Berlinische Galerie accessible along with illustrations online – as far as compatible with legal restrictions. The greatest challenge in this context is to clarify publication rights, since a large number of different rights holders are involved. In addition, there are works abandoned and others in the public domain. The intention is to work through these issues, developing and implementing new solutions in a way that will be exemplary for collections of modern and contemporary art, which all face the same problems.
