Provenienzforschung im Museum: Im Spannungsfeld von Restitution und Erinnerungskultur

On the eve of the conference »Leerstellen«, a panel discussion will take place on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig. Under the title »Provenance Research in Museums,« Alina Gromova, Meike Hopp, Monika Tatzkow, and Lucy Wasensteiner will discuss the tension between restitution and the culture of remembrance. Jörg Deventer and Ulrike Saß will moderate the discussion.

Drawing on the perspectives of art history, Jewish history, and museum studies, the conference examines the role of Jewish collections in the development of the art and museum landscape in Saxony, with a particular focus on the cities of Leipzig, Chemnitz, Dresden, and Zwickau.

Provenance research has increasingly brought to light the active involvement of German museums and collecting institutions in the systematic expropriation of Jewish property during the National Socialist era. Yet reconstructing the histories of individual collectors, their collecting profiles, and the relationships between people and museums remains a complex and demanding task. What significance, then, does researching and making visible the biographies of Jewish collectors have for contemporary museum practice? What role does the legally and ethically necessary practice of provenance research play within museums? And what function does the museum assume as a site of knowledge production, interpretation, and mediation in the context of remembrance?

The conference approaches art-historical provenance research as a means of addressing questions concerning Jewish cultural, social, and taste history on the one hand, and as a key to investigating the history of museums and collecting policies on the other. At the intersection of these perspectives, the conference explores the histories of Jewish collectors and their property, the infrastructures and economies of private collecting, as well as restitution processes and the contentious discussions surrounding the fate of cultural objects after 1945.