"Let the fresh wind take hold of you and carry you away!" This is what the interactive app "MKdW on tour" of the Museum Kunst der Westküste invites you to do, which today will accompany me through the current exhibition "Fresh Air - Northern Impressionism" - and that is exactly what I intend to do during my visit.
I am greeted by a large exhibition banner in front of the museum, in the centre of the island in Alkersum. I already recognise the cover painting "Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer on the Beach at Skagen" (1893) by Peder Severin Krøyer from my first time exploring the app and am now looking forward to finally being able to see the two ladies, who were artists themselves, on the original work. In the museum shop, I briefly browse through the exhibition catalogue, which, like the exhibition itself, is a collaboration between the MKdW, the Landesmuseum Hannover and the Museum Singer Laren. Then I enter the exhibition with my ticket in hand. I stop next to a family who are already intently listening to the audio guide in the app - which is available for both children and adults. At the ticket office, they have equipped themselves with iPads and headphones - I also borrowed these on a previous visit.
So I open the app, scroll past all the other ways to use it - whether for art tours around the island on a bike or to discover other exhibitions - and open the audio tour. In the app, the "Fresh Air" content can be found on the homepage under the "In the Museum" section. Individual works can also be searched for using an exhibit number, which can be found under the artworks in the halls.
Max Liebermann, Tennisplayers at the Seashore - 1st Version, 1901 © Photo: Museum Kunst der Westküste
The exhibition, which focuses in particular on Impressionist art from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, is divided into thematic areas that were important to the respective artists.
Light - the first theme - was a key factor for the Impressionists. It was captured with quick brushstrokes and intense colours, such as in the work "Drying Area for Fishing Nets at Skagen" (1890) by Viggo Johansen. Listening to the accompanying audio, I am greeted by screaming seagulls and crashing waves - it is as though I am immersed in the painting and am standing with the fishermen on the grassy dunes.
As I listen to the two narrators describing the paintings, explaining the motifs and their background and talking about the artists' lives, I forget about the other guests around me and travel from the island of Föhr to Denmark's northernmost coast to Skagen, with Max Liebermann to the beach in Scheveningen or listen to the church bells of Amsterdam as I learn what the "Breitner weather" is all about.
I can hear the family's two children laughing all around me and am curious about the children's audio guide. A glance at the app reveals that the younger ones can discover the same works as the adults. And as I listen to the tour, I am greeted by the voices of the two children Enno and Nele, who live on Föhr and know the museum well. Young visitors of the museum can discover the exhibition together with them. In playful conversations, Enno and Nele imagine travelling into a work of art or to the place where it was created. What would it be like to make a living from fishing? And they also know a lot about the artists themselves.
George Hendrik Breitner, Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1891, Singer Laren, © Photo: Museum Kunst der Westküste
Strolling through the halls and the other themed areas, such as "Travel", "City" or "Country", I learn a lot about unfamiliar places, schools of paintings and art colonies, painting styles and life in the 19th and 20th century - I can explain the meaning behind terms such as "Pointillism" or "Blue Hour". And did you know that Max Liebermann's daughter was called Käthe and enjoyed playing tennis in her free time? Back then, the sport was a good way for high society to socialise with people of the opposite gender...
But the app doesn't just allow me to travel virtually. A glance at the map, which forms the centrepiece of the app, reveals where "MKdW on tour" can take me. Whether Norway, Denmark, Germany or the Netherlands, works from the MKdW collection are located in all four west coast countries. After all I've already learnt about these places, I really want to visit them myself. What would it be like to discover the places where Anna Ancher's works were created in Skagen or to stand on Scheveningen beach where Max Liebermann stood over a hundred years ago? Find out where the artists themselves lived and worked? The app's photo function also makes me curious - you can use it to capture the current location in a picture, perhaps pose in front of the motif and then compare it with the artwork.
The app will therefore continue to accompany me after my visit to Föhr and also outside the museum. I am planning to discover some of the artworks in the MKdW collection on the island the next day - by bike and with a lot of "fresh air"...