The Metabolic Museum

For quite some time now, anthropological museums in Europe have been compelled to legitimate themselves. The fundamental discourse of their exhibitions is a topic of discussion, as is the history of their collections, which came about all too often through colonial appropriation. It is obvious that this cannot go on. That it can also be completely different is something that Clémentine Deliss shows in her current publication. She offers an intriguing mix of autobiographically-informed novel, and scientifically- argued thesis on contemporary art and ethnology. Reflections about her own work as the director of the Frankfurt Weltkulturen Museum (World Cultural Museum) encounter definitive explorations of influential filmmakers, artists, and authors. Descriptions of this state of affairs meet the Metabolic Museum, an interventionist laboratory that opens up the potential of anthropological collections for the future.

CLÉMENTINE DELISS ( 1960) achieved international renown as a cultural historian, publisher, and curator. As the Director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, curator of the KW Berlin, and as a researcher and teacher at prominent institutes, transdisciplinary exchanges in contemporary art are at the center of her work. She is Associate Curator of KW, Berlin and visiting professor at the Academy of Arts, Hamburg.