Nazi-looted cultural property
Colonial contexts

"Tiefenbohrung: Provenienzgeschichten aus dem Deutschen Buch- und Schriftmuseum" published by Hatje Cantz Verlag

Tiefen­bohrung: Eine an­dere Prove­nien­zgeschichte (“Deep drilling: a prove­nance his­to­ry with a dif­fer­ence”), pub­lished by Hat­je Cantz Ver­lag, tells the sto­ry of the ori­gin of cul­tur­al prop­er­ty in mu­se­ums. The book takes a close look at the paths, de­tours and dead ends tak­en by the hold­ings of the Ger­man Mu­se­um of Books and Writ­ing, col­lect­ed since 1884, be­fore be­ing stored in its de­pots. The fo­cus is on de­struc­tion and raids as well as do­na­tions.

Whether un­der­ground comics, flop­py disks, ear­ly prints, posters, let­ters, dig­i­tal lega­cies, Hol­ly­wood pho­tos or a pub­lish­er’s sil­ver tro­phy of hon­our: 33 ex­em­plary ob­ject bi­ogra­phies open our eyes to the in­ten­tions and own­er­ship claims of mem­o­ry in­sti­tu­tions and how the lat­ter have sought to pass on tra­di­tion. Rich in im­ages, the pub­li­ca­tion al­so arous­es a sense of cu­rios­i­ty for the beau­ty of the cul­tur­al her­itage as well as re­veal­ing its his­tor­i­cal fault lines.

Found­ed in 1884 and be­long­ing to the Ger­man Na­tion­al Li­brary in Leipzig, the Ger­man Mu­se­um of Books and Writ­ing is con­sid­ered the world’s old­est and – with over one mil­lion ob­jects – one of the most im­por­tant mu­se­ums in the field of the his­to­ry of book cul­ture and me­dia.

Tiefen­bohrung: Prove­nien­zgeschicht­en aus dem Deutschen Buch- und Schrift­mu­se­um.
Ed. Stephanie Ja­cobs, Deutsches Buch- und Schrift­mu­se­um der Deutschen Na­tion­al­bib­lio­thek, Leipzig.
Texts by Wolf­gang Ernst, Stephanie Ja­cobs, Gilbert Lupfer, Béné­dicte Savoy, In­grid Schaffn­er, de­sign by Torsten Köch­lin and Joana Kat­te
Berlin: Hat­je Cantz Ver­lag (2022)
416 pages, 183 il­lus­tra­tions

The book can be or­dered from the pub­lish­er at https://www.hat­je­cantz.de/tiefen­bohrung-8220-0.html