Completely renovated Diocesan Museum reopened: The Freisinger Domberg has its art back

Created: 03.10.2022, 17:00

By: Andreas Beschorner

Museum Director Christoph Kurzder (l.) welcomed more than 2000 invited guests in the atrium on Saturday for the reopening of the Diocesan Museum.

© Lehmann

The Diocesan Museum in Freising was closed for nine years.

Now it has reopened.

The new light-flooded museum is a great architectural feat. 

Freising

– This rush was not expected: At the festival for the reopening of the Diocesan Museum on Saturday, all of the more than 2000 invited guests came, long queues formed in front of the entrance, inside you stood on the balustrades and looked down into the bright atrium.

And the people of Freising also paid their respects to “their” diocesan museum on Sunday and Monday after nine years of starvation.

The impression of the "open walls" convinced the many visitors at the open day.

© Lehmann

Almost everyone who entered the new museum for the first time in those days stopped.

The reason: the room-spanning light installation by James Turrell, which inevitably attracts and banishes the attention of the museum visitor.

Especially all those who still know the old "DIMU" were almost overwhelmed by what awaited them in the new one.

There was a reason why, in addition to admiring comments in Bavarian ("Da Wahnsinn!") and numerous guided tours in German, Italian sentences and conversations could be heard again and again: the first special exhibition "Dance on the volcano", which is an example of the current situation of society with highly topical questions such as how to deal with natural disasters or with the uncertainty in times of crisis, and from the treasure of San Gennaro in Naples,

"DIMU" workshops delight the guests

What the visitors also particularly enjoyed at the weekend was certainly the completely new flair of the Diocesan Museum.

And that doesn't just mean the gastronomy in the basement, but also the two "DIMU" workshops - the one in the provost on the ground floor and the one in the basement.

Participation and your own artistic creativity were required there: the design of leather pendants, which should serve as a talisman, or "postcards from paradise" were offered as well as the production of small stucco objects.

Or how about a self-designed and gilded icon picture?

And what does paradise look like

if you draw it yourself with chalk and colored pencils?

What can you do with gold leaf?

In various workshops, under expert guidance and inspired by works of art in the Diocesan Museum, you could become an artist yourself.

Impressed by the "new" diocesan museum were publishers Dr.

Dirk Ippen and his wife Marlene – to the delight of Vicar General Christoph Klingan (left) and Museum Director Christoph Kurzder (right).

© Lehmann

By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.

Those who would prefer to deal with the artists and works of art from 1700 years of religious history could confidently join the various tours through the new house - whether it's a tour of the display collection on the first floor, a family tour, a visit to the special exhibition in the second floor or an intensive look at the contemporary art in the new "DIMU" - from James Turrell to Berlinde de Bruyckere and Nico Rauch to Kiki Smith.

The art-loving hustle and bustle was then reinforced by guided tours dedicated to the highly interesting architectural redesign of the Diocesan Museum by the architects Brückner & Brückner.

Their motto: "Open walls" - at the latest after a tour of the house,

After many views over Freising and the landscape as well as after many views from one room to the other, it is no longer just a motto, but a sensory experience.

So the Domberg has "its" art back.

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Ceremonial key handover in the atrium of the Diocesan Museum: (from left) Archbishop Reinhard Marx and Director Christoph Kurzder with the architects Peter Brückner, Christian Brückner (behind) and project manager Günter Horn.

© Lehmann

A place of art and music

But Domberg has always been a place of culture as a whole.

And that is why the Diocesan Museum has also been a place of music over the past few days: the Mons doctus ensemble in particular delighted the audience both on the day of the inauguration by Archbishop Reinhard Marx and on Saturday with works by Johann Sebastian Bach & Co.: “Rejoice, God in all lands".

And what art was able to do with the special exhibition, music was already able to do for a long time: A good part of Italy was also there on those days.

The well-known group Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare from Naples framed the ceremony and gave a concert on Monday evening in the atrium of the museum entitled "Anima di terra" - so to speak, the conclusion of the four-day festival, at the end of which one thing was clear:

The people of Freising have their "DIMU" back - and they welcomed it with open arms and full of enthusiasm.

It will stay that way, even if there will be no more pizza or Neapolitan specialties in the "DIMU" restaurant - also a piece of Naples on these days.

You can find more current news from the district of Freising at Merkur.de/Freising.