The start page sends a clear message. This website can best be described as ‘spacy’. The ultra-modern museum by architect Axel Shultes from 1992 seems to be on its way to outer space. The building is surrounded by red captions, and grey subtitles on the front page. But what’s inside?
Modern art of the 20th century! Highlights are works of August Macke and the Rhenish expressionists, as well as German art after 1945. Besides this there are several graphic collections and international video art from the international art scene. One of the up-coming events for the brave is the Videonale 11 from 15 March-15 April. There will be 48 exhibits. One of them is by video artist Lia Anna Hennig living in England is described as: “Red, erotic, carnal, halfway between glamour and cannibalism: this is how the mouth with its impeccable white teeth filling the screen of the monitor shows itself.” Was she the winner of the Videonale Prize of 5.000 euros? Check out the website to find out.
User-friendliness
Once we leave ‘home’, then the website is very traditional with links to the left and grey lettering, which can be difficult to read, particularly the picture captions in light grey. The lettering in general is either very small or excessively big. But besides this information is logically placed and easily found, be it collections, exhibitions, programs, information, museum info and the architecture. The information is there with all the necessary contact information.
Navigation
Perhaps one would have expected the museum to experiment with alternative ways of navigation, but everything is logical, albeit somewhat traditional. There is no search engine, no print function and no art database, but a link service with links to key Bonn websites.
Content
I lack an introduction that presents the aim of Kunstmuseum Bonn. I can find the information by piecing it together, but would have preferred a short introduction. When opening the top link on “August Macke” the text starts: “That such current artistic positions can of course not be completely understood without considering their forerunners and preconditions can be seen on the ground floor, where the museum's important August Macke collection is housed. Although Macke was not born in Bonn, he is still, having lived some time here, counted as one of the Bonn artists, to whom in its formative years the collection was especially dedicated, i.e., in the 40s and 50s….” The feeling one gets is that their target group are connoisseurs who are used to reading texts with many parenthetical sentences. Nonetheless, I believe a work over by someone who has other target groups in mind and who writes in a manner suited for the web, would be a good investment.
Generally there is a lot of German on the English Version, for instance the title of a current exhibition isn’t translated. This may turn some tourists off, because if the website doesn’t translate titles, then what will it be like at the museum?
Updating
Under ‘programs’ – ‘calendar’ the first entrance is from January 6 and one has to scroll through quite a few workshops and guided tours during the weekends before coming to March. It would be a good service to remove former events. We are warned that the calendar is in German and links to German pages. The same goes for the event calendar, whereas the next press conference is March 28, so I presume previous press conferences have been removed as there are four listed from March-June.
On exhibition currently are Philip Guston and “Junge gesichte – alte bekannte” (young faces – old acquaintances). Guston is on show until May 20, but we are not informed about when the other exhibition is finished.
Aesthetics
It’s as if the website falls between two stools, on the one hand it wants to signal modernity in keeping with being a modern art museum. On the other hand it’s very traditional. There is also a bit of confusion regarding the German and English version, where the German version is without the building and ‘spacy’ look. The link to “English version” is very discreet and can be difficult to find. Quite a few of the collection pages lack pictures accompanying the texts – and the overall look is not convincing with different letter sizes, grey lettering and not enough art.
Creativity
A good feature is the Audio and Video program linking to video examples from their collections. But once again, users need to be guided on how to use this, as the links link to instalment of Realplayer, etc. The overall feel is not one of creativity.
My gut feeling is that Kunstmuseum Bonn has much more to offer than we get the impression of when visiting the website. Besides the architecture, which is thoroughly described accompanied with photos, a modern art museum in Germanys former capital must have masses of treats for their visitors. Perhaps a trip to Bonn will confirm this feeling.
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Related Information
Kunstmuseum Bonn, http://kunstmuseum.bonn.de/start_e.htm
Birgit O'Sullivan
- 14. marts 2007