The twenty-second annual congress of CODART opened tonight in Berlin with a festive reception at the Embassy of Belgium in Berlin. Over a hundred participants from fifteen countries will gather the following two days to attend lectures and excursions in Berlin.

The congress was made possible thanks to the generous support of the General Representative of the Government of Flanders in Germany, the Embassy of the Netherlands in Berlin, the Friends of CODART Foundation, and the structural support of the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague. We thank the Gemäldegalerie and the Bode-Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin for their generous hospitality.

On Monday, the Gemäldegalerie will host the first day of the congress featuring lectures, discussions, and statements on the congress theme: Back to Berlin – And What It Means to Be a Museum Curator Today. We are honored that this year’s lectures will be presented by Johannes Rößler (Lecturer at the University of Bern), Julien Chapuis (Deputy Director of the Bode-Museum), and Chantal Eschenfelder (Head of Education and Digital Collection of the Städel Museum). The day will be chaired by Bendor Grosvenor (art historian, writer, BBC presenter). On Tuesday, the group will meet at the Bode-Museum for a morning of brief presentations on current issues by curators in the Speakers’ Corner.

On Monday and Tuesday afternoon, all participants are invited to choose from a broad selection of in-depth study visits, such as a tour through the collections of the Gemäldegalerie and its storage rooms, a workshop on Wilhem Bode and Wilhelm R. Valentiner, and visits to the Kupferstichkabinett, the Bode-Museum and Schloss Charlottenburg. An optional full-day excursion to Schwerin, including guided tours through the Staatliches Museum Schwerin and the church in the Castle of Schwerin, is offered on Wednesday.

For the full program and information on the lectures and excursions, see www.codart.nl/22/