Renaming works: Klepsch defends artistic freedom

The SKD had the task of collecting, researching and scientifically processing, said Klepsch. According to the information, around 1.7 million objects are recorded in the museum database "Daphne". The scientists' task is to research the origin and legality of the acquisition. Among other things, they are also looking to see whether titles are racist or discriminatory. Klepsch gave the example of a work by the painter Jacob van Ruisdael, which was retitled from "Jewish Cemetery" to "The Jewish Cemetery". "Completely correct from my point of view." According to Klepsch, historical titles given by artists themselves are marked with quotation marks.

In most cases, it is about object descriptions from research, an SKD spokesperson explained on request. Some descriptions proved to be factually incorrect in the course of more recent research and had to be corrected accordingly. Out of a total of 1.7 million objects recorded in the museum database, the titles of 223 works (as of September 2022) have been revised with regard to discriminatory terms, according to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen website. In most cases, the titles were not assigned by the artists, but by researchers or former museum employees.