James-Simon-Galerie

— Near Life

In cooperation with Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Studio Jester Blank created one of the first fully immersive, entirely three dimensional tours of the opening exhibition 'Near Life' in the James-Simon-Gallery.

The entire space, with all of its exhibits was captured via laser scan and photogrammetry. From this vast data set we then created an almost lifelike virtual space, in which the viewer can move freely, look at objects from all angles and listen to the exhibitions audio commentary.

A digital environment offers different options compared to an actual exhibition. In response to this challenge we decided on a strategy that combines elements of a traditional museum visit, paired with new technology. 

To achieve that, we did not only focus on the space itself, but created additional high resolution digital twins for the exhibitions 22 most important pieces. The visitor can navigate to those via walking around the main space. The individual models offer yet another level of high definition detail as far as texture and shape is concerned, as well as the exhibitions audio commentary for additional context.

Locoön Group

Master model, 1844
Plaster, shellacked
242 x 184 x 100 cm
(Original: ca. 1st century BCE, Roman copy at Vatican Museums, Rome)

The Greek Locoön Group was discovered in Rome in 1506. The version shown here from 1844 includes Locoön’s outstretched arm, which was added to the sculpture at a later stage. The original arm was in fact found in 1905; its copy is also in the collection of the Gipsformerei. The soot deeply ingrained in the surface of this master model is either due to the railway nearby the Gipsformerei or the fire at the premises towards the end of World War II.

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gipsformerei

Crocodile

Master model, 1892
Plaster, shellacked
Length: 290 cm
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gipsformerei

This crocodile was presumably moulded at the zoo. It is part of the former collection of teaching aids of the Königliches Kunstgewerbemuseum (Royal Arts and Crafts Museum) in Berlin. Among them are plaster casts of architectural elements, arts-and-crafts objects, famous sculptures and roughly one hundred casts of human body parts as well as parts of animals. The teaching aids were used in drawing classes at the Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums (Teaching Institute of the Royal Arts and Crafts Museum) in Berlin. They were also made to be sold to other teaching institutions. The crocodile’s price in the 1890s was set at 50 marks.

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gipsformerei

Soil

by Asta Gröting (*1961)
Epoxy resin, 24-carat gold
206 x 216 x 50 cm
Galerie carlier | gebauer Berlin

In a field in Oderbruch, eastern Germany, Asta Gröting began this work by creating a multiple-part plaster negative, which was to serve as the basis for casting several positives. These positives were then painted the colour of dirt, had phosphorus applied to them, or were gilded. Here, in keeping with her practice, the choice of the casting technique is a conceptual decision: the cast makes things visible which are normally hidden from sight.

© Asta Gröting / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020

Mausoleum

by Asta Gröting (*1961)
Silicone, jute
373 x 373 x 10 cm
Israel Museum, Jerusalem

For her series ‘Berlin Fassaden’ artist Asta Gröting took moulds of entire facades of buildings in Berlin damaged during the last two weeks of the war in April 1945. Render, dirt, dust, moss, entire pieces of graffiti, all has been faithfully transferred to silicone. The work Mausoleum is a reference to the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof. Seeing the unusual negative form causes a change of perspective: you look out onto the world from inside the wall.

© Asta Gröting / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020

L'Âge d'arain / The Bronze Age

1875–76
by Auguste Rodin (1840–1917)
Plaster
Height: 181 cm
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Skulpturensammlung, 1738

This sculpture was met with fierce criticism at the Salon in Paris in 1877, the charge being made that it was a lifecast. Rodin passionately defended the integrity of his work, but it was only in 1880 — when several fellow sculptors submitted their expert opinion — that the artist was completely exculpated. Today this work is among Rodin’s most widely distributed sculptures: roughly 150 casts authorised by the artist are to be found in museums and collections all over the world. The version on display here is an early plaster cast from Dresden, which served as the basis for several casts made in the 1950s and 1960s. The traces of shellac are a reminder that even authenticated plasters were in danger of being misunderstood as replicas.

© Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Ultimate life: Casting from death

Plaster can directly capture life and is equally capable of documenting the end of life, that brief moment when life morphs into death. No artefact comes as close to achieving this as the death mask. From its physical contact with the face of a person who was alive only a moment ago, the death mask distils an allegedly authentic cast that confronts death with ‘ultimate life’, something which is utterly beyond its reach. In addition to a selection of master or gelatin models of death masks from the Gipsformerei, two original death masks from the Nationalgalerie, realized as busts, and exhibition copies of the famous plaster casts of the dead from Pompeii are presented here.

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gipsformerei

Viewer
sketchfab & custom build on request


Texture Resolution
16384 x 16384 px
8192 x 8192 px on Sketchfab


Geometry
Optimized quad topology