Jewish Museum: New Director Feels “No Headwind”

ORF (online), July 20, 2022
German original: https://religion.orf.at/stories/3214183/

Barbara Staudinger has been director of Vienna's Jewish Museum since the beginning of July. She is therefore often asked about her religion. For her work, however, it "plays no role" that she is not Jewish. She is unperturbed by the appeal of some prominent individuals last year to refrain from changing museum directors: "I don't feel any headwind."

The fact that Danielle Spera's contract as director of the Jewish Museum might not be renewed had put several prominent figures on notice in 2021. In an open letter during the “hearing phase,” they spoke out in favor of Spera and against a new appointment. Among them were ex-Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein, then ORF Director General Alexander Wrabetz, then Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler and artist Andre Heller.

"I am not a person who looks backwards, but looks forwards. I was warmly received by all the people who came to me," Staudinger said in an interview with the Ö1 religion magazine "Praxis" on Wednesday. She felt great joy, "a great desire for change.

"Spera has done many things very well"

Staudinger: "That doesn't mean that my predecessor did anything badly. On the contrary, she did many things very well. But culture thrives on change." And this joy of change, she says, was imparted to her by many people. "It gave me a lot of strength."

Of course, there are people who say to themselves, "Never change a winning team," but one can often experience in the city "that projects that may have met with rejection at first are then loved all the more afterwards," says the new director of the Jewish Museum.

"What if I were Jewish?"

A historian, theater scholar and Judaist by training, she is "often asked" if she is Jewish, which she then denies, she says. "I then sometimes answer with a counter-question: 'What would it add to my work if I were religious? If I were Jewish? What would be different then? What would I do differently then?'" says Staudinger in an interview with Ö1.

"It's not like I'm exhibiting myself. I think I've shown, through my studies, through my research, that I know what I'm talking about. It's not like I come to a museum, preside over it, and have no idea what is inside it." Staudinger, for example, was a curator at the Jewish Museum Munich and, among other things, part of the team redesigning the Austrian exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. As of 2018, she directed the Jewish Museum Augsburg.

Reaching “Other Minorities”

Staudinger has made it her mission to reach new target groups - "Vienna's urban society in all its diversity," says the director of the Jewish Museum. "I think I showed in Augsburg how you can have an effect with performances, with actions, with interventions in other museums, with many, many collaborations out in the urban space. And very importantly, how you can also have an impact in those districts where people live who may not be part of the Jewish Museum's core audience."

Staudinger stresses the importance of also "addressing other minorities in the city through issues raised by the Jewish Museum." After all, she says, these are issues that affect minorities other than Jewish minorities. "I want to focus specifically on these groups, on younger groups of visitors who have not gone to the Jewish Museum until now. That's where I think the Jewish Museum has some catching up to do."

Recipes against the crisis of museums

According to Staudinger, museums are slipping into a crisis or are already in one because people are increasingly asking themselves, "What does this have to do with me?" It's important to address current issues, she said, "issues and problems that we all face." That is the task of every museum, she said, and the Jewish Museum's task is to address and discuss these current issues from a Jewish perspective.

In the museum, Staudinger also wants to rely heavily on digital formats. A digital collection that is also accessible online and not only serves as a research tool or archive is "now a real core element of every museum.” Exciting online exhibitions are also to be developed "that don't depict what's on display in the building, but convey their own stories in very unique formats. That's very important to me."