When students are allowed to curate in the museum

How do you actually go about curating an exhibition? Nine art students at RPTU in Landau have found out exactly that and are now allowed to present their visions in their own museum space at the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern (mpk). They worked with the museum in Kaiserslautern for several months and were able to present their exhibition to the public in person at an opening ceremony in June.

"When Professor Marc Fritzsche told us the topic of our seminar, no one could imagine what it meant at first," Jana Maier recalls with a laugh. "Audience participation in the museum" didn't reveal much about the crazy idea that was soon to become more than just theory for her. During the session, the students learned that they would be given the chance to curate their own space at the mpk. Specifically: to select works of art from the mpk according to their own taste and bring them together in a constellation of their own devising. The opportunity to do so was based on several years of collaboration between Marc Fritzsche and museum director Steffen Egle and his confidence that the students' realization would turn out well under the guidance of the RPTU lecturer. After the initial excitement, the atmosphere quickly turned to euphoria and anticipation. "We all immediately realized how rare it is to have the opportunity to contribute creatively to an exhibition like this. The excitement was correspondingly high and everyone had countless ideas for the exhibition," says Alexander Koch enthusiastically. Initially, the students' attention was not focused on the museum space itself; instead, they concentrated exclusively on the implementation of their seminar topic. "We first thought about how we could create an atmosphere that would offer the public more context for the works. At the same time, we also looked at the practical details, such as having enough comfortable seating that would invite people to linger in the room and take in the works of art," says Jana Maier.

Finally, the time had come - the students were given access to the mpk's online repository and were able to look around for suitable works of art for "their" room. The museum's only requirement was that it should be art from the period after 1945. So the young artists researched the online repository and initially compiled a long list of works that appealed to them personally. "Many of the selected works are never actually seen in a common context and are not usually exhibited together," explains student Jana Maier. However, the student curators saw similarities and completely new possibilities for juxtaposing the artworks and consistently grouped them according to their newly defined points of view. The nine described their new perspective on the works as "gegen/über" - in other words, a new way of looking at works of art and thus creating a new, unconventional context for them. "Our biggest challenge was the space itself. The long list of our selected exhibits raised the question of whether we could even fit them all into the space," says Alexander Koch. At times, neither the dimensions of the room nor those of the works were known. This made it difficult for the students to finalize the spatial arrangement of the works. It was not clear whether the room would be too small or possibly too full. "The museum staff or even the craftsmen didn't always share our view of the exhibits and we then had to defend them, but it was definitely worth following our instincts," confirms Jana Maier.

The complete creative freedom in the design also proved to be a challenge. "Professor Fritzsche encouraged us throughout the entire process, which was a great help," says Jana Maier. They gave the exhibition space with its muted colors more lightness with fresh, bright colors. The color concept, the selected works and their arrangement resulted in the final room concept: a colorful, cheerful new exhibition space.

The preparations for the student exhibition were time-consuming: numerous seminar sessions, video conferences and site visits kept the young curators on their toes for nine months. Pride and relief were correspondingly great at the exhibition opening at the mpk this June. "The guests, the mpk curators and the craftsmen were delighted with our space, which impressed them with its wonderful atmosphere in which the artworks could be perceived in their very own context," says Jana Maier happily.

What are the nine taking away from this extraordinary experience? "It was a unique, indescribable experience, which involved a lot of work but also a lot of fun thanks to the great support from Marc Fritzsche and the good group cohesion," says Alexander Koch. Professor Marc Fritzsche also looks back on an enriching time: "All in all, this was one of the most inspiring seminars in my almost 18 years of teaching at the university. The students did an outstanding job in an intensive process that was extremely challenging for everyone involved." The result of the students' hard work can be admired at the mpk until 19.1.2025. And who knows, after this success, perhaps other museums will open their doors to universities and their young artists ...