Maritime Country. The North and Baltic Sea Coasts

Dr. Susan Müller-Wusterwitz of DigiKultur and Prof. Dr. Fischer, Hamburg University were commissioned to develop this show as guest curators for the Altona Museum.

"Maritime Country" dedicates itself to the coast as a border between water and land which since time immemorial has both horrified and yet at the same time fascinated. The rich inventory of pictures and exhibition pieces of the Altona Museum which set the scene for the North and Baltic Sea coasts will be newly introduced.

The history of the natural development of the coast, the fauna and flora will equally be taken into consideration as will the beach pleasures, the work of farmers, fishermen and seamen as well as the fight with water and the deadly threats of shipwreck and storm tide.

In the centre of the exhibition are numerous pictures from the collection of the Altona Museum which could not be shown for a long time: painters of the German Expressionism such as Max Pechstein, Käte Lassen, Walter Gramatté and especially the Hamburg Secession artists such as Ivo Hauptmann, Alma del Banco, Eduard Bagheer und Karl Kluth engaged themselves with the maritime regions from different perspectives.

The exhibition is generously sponsored by the Isa Lohmann-Siems Foundation, Hamburg. The foundation continues its commitment to research in art and cultural history of the north German region which they began in 2004 with the project Inszenierungen der Küste (The Staging of the Coast). With the collaboration with the Altona Museum the first results of the research work can be shown in the form of an exhibition.