It is exactly the kind of show the Humboldt Forum should be putting on-melding the natural world and arts and culture to reflect the interests of the polymath brothers who gave the new museum complex its name. But if Terrible Beauty, an exploration of the global trade in ivory, provides a foretaste of what is to come, there is reason to be optimistic. The ethnographic display-which can expect particularly intense scrutiny-will not open until the end of September. Hartmut Dorgerloh, the general director of the Humboldt Forum, says its exhibitions should address “problematic issues” and “stimulate discussion”. Built at a cost of €680m-mostly provided by taxpayers-the Humboldt Forum faces high expectations. Germany’s chattering classes expect the Humboldt Forum to tackle challenging issues unflinchingly, particularly those relating to colonialism.

Yet this uncomfortable juxtaposition of perpetrators and victims has also focused minds. Activists protested against the “imperial messaging”.Ī pile of confiscated tusks in Kenya being burnt to prevent it re-entering circulation © Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo But long before that, the Humboldt Forum served as a lightning rod for the national debate about the legacy of colonialism.Īnd as the opening approached, the decision to house the city’s ethnographic collections-including thousands of objects looted during the colonial era-inside a reconstruction of the residence of the kings who oversaw the plunder, destruction and genocide seemed increasingly jarring. The vast new museum complex in a reconstruction of the Prussian royal palace opened after many construction and pandemic-related delays in July.

The tusk can be touched at Terrible Beauty: Elephant-Human-Ivory, one of the first exhibitions at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. It is a thrill for adults, too, to run fingers over the creamy, warm, smooth tooth of a creature that has been extinct for about 4,000 years and compare it with the ivory of its modern-day cousin, the elephant. “Mum, look!” A boy of about ten could barely contain his excitement.

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