Il museo come teoria. Appunti per una lettura critica del Landesmuseum di Dorner

Through a perusal of archival material and guides of the time, this paper aims to reconstruct the theoretical and curatorial project behind the reorganization of the Landesmuseum of Hanover undertaken by Alexander Dorner between 1923 and 1936. The approach adopted, which analyzes the museum as a theoretical text, has two main results. On the one hand, it broadens the critical discourse on the art theory produced in Weimar to include museum institutions, and, on the other, it helps in reconstructing Dorner’s thought, whose theoretical relevance has often been obscured by a “reductionist”, bureaucratic interpretation of his work as a museum director. This study highlights how the eccentric nature of his position – suspended between art history and militant criticism – leads to an extraordinarily innovative thought, which hybridizes classical art theory (Dorner dialogues fruitfully with Alois Riegl and Erwin Panofsky) with a deep understanding of the most radical avant-garde experiences of the time. The first part of the work reconstructs Dorner’s positions on the historicity of vision, and how they found expression in the environments of the Landesmuseum. The second part dwells on the problems of exhibition design, and on the pragmatic framework for the realization of Dorner’s display philosophy