Gerold Miller shakes up the Bröhan Museum

The surface of “SET C22” and that of the “Sitting Monkey” from the Bröhan Museum collection are similarly perfect. The small animal’s porcelain skin shimmers like ivory, the large-format work of art by Gerold Miller is sealed off from the outside in shiny white. Only a black corner disturbs the perfect harmony of the form, the monkey in turn watches with interest a tiny beetle that has settled on his hand. A red accent on the sculpture created in 1904.

“SET C22”, on the other hand, is less than a year old, the format is strictly rectangular and its motif is the result of clear geometric relationships. Gerold Miller uses car paint for his works; it couldn’t be smoother. The work hangs on the wall and is not intended to be a picture, but rather an object that has an impact on the room. “Intervention #1” is the name of the Berlin-based artist’s famous exhibition in the Bröhan Museum, and this title, which suggests interventions, can be understood quite ambiguously.

The selection is astonishing

Miller himself tries to “load the space to the limit,” as he says. His sculptural works are predominantly large and always three-dimensional, a challenge for the location. They appear dominant in the two exhibition rooms; even modest formats immediately attract attention thanks to the intense black and blue.

Nevertheless, they do not obscure the view of the exhibits in the Museum of Applied Arts with which the artist combines his work. “Intervention #1” combines highlights from the collection with works from Miller’s studio. Some are in their transport boxes, others are scattered around the room. A free-standing sculpture from the “Amplifier” series, an L-shape made of mirror-polished aluminum, sits between the historical objects – a tray made of cast tin by Hugo Leven and a floor vase by KPM, which Adolf Flad decorated with lavish decorations and pheasants in 1914.

That sounds challenging, and museum director Tobias Hoffmann is still a little surprised by the selection. He says he expected Gerold Miller to be interested in other objects in the collection; for straight lines from the Art Deco or Bauhaus era. At least for those who underline the purist formal language of his contemporary art.

Instead, the ornament predominates. Curvy, expansive things like the “Dancer with Kothurn”, which was cast from fire-gilded bronze in Paris around 1901: with a dress that is frozen in decorative folds and was created in the heyday of Art Nouveau. A painting by Karl Hagemeister promises a “view from the window of houses in Paris” around 1884. The vase from the Manufacture Nationale de Porcelaine de Sèvres is two decades younger. But wait: isn’t there the first formal connection here?

Optical impulses from art history

The simple vessel captivates with its black and blue glaze – a double that can be found in a “SET” duo by Miller. A small table visually takes up the circular shape of his “Instant Vision 265” from 2023, the spot on the monkey’s hand appears a thousand times larger in the work “IV 31”, which explodes all dimensions of the museum: a deep red background with a black circle like a Eye.

One begins to suspect how Gerold Miller sees; how the optical impulses of art history find their way into his work. Pointed, abstracted, universally valid. The artist can be seen in a parallel solo show at the Wentrup Gallery in Berlin; here the works have their usual cool appearance, are pure concepts with maximum color contrasts. For his part, Hoffmann is grateful for the confrontation between history and the present: “Gerold Miller sees the objects as sculptures. His view as a sculptor is focused on what defines the objects and what creates their beauty.”

1200 visitors on the weekend

“Intervention #1” is an experiment, but as an exhibition it is also the museum’s capital. However, the director cannot say whether there will be a sequel. Although he knows from experience how much influence changing projects have on visitor numbers. At the beginning of December, 1,200 guests came to the last admission-free Sunday, which the Senate is canceling from 2025 as a cost-cutting measure. It gets similarly busy on weekends, when the Bröhan Museum can offer attractive changing shows. However, the house’s budget is also being cut; it is currently around 200,000 euros.

Hoffmann is conflicted: Should he start with the guides or the artists who work in mediation? Both are important, he would rather set the purchasing budget to zero and forego catalogs and examine further savings. “If at all possible, I will keep the exhibition operations out of the cuts,” is his preliminary conclusion.

He has been looking for sponsors, as recommended by Senator for Culture Joe Chialo for compensation, for a long time – quite successfully, as in the case of the lavish current show “Design for Children”, which is supported by the Ikea Foundation. Thanks to the sponsorship of Deutsche Wohnen SE, there was also one entry-free day per month until the end of 2022. However, potential partners are rare in Berlin.

“A lot has been developed in recent years, such as admission-free museum Sundays, better pay for the guides and cultural monitoring so that we can find out more about our visitors. Now most of it is simply being crushed and the Berlin cultural scene is being deliberately damaged,” says Hoffmann. “Without sensitivity to what belongs to the culture.”