Special Exhibitions
On the road
Current
Current
Temple Tax and Dove Dealers
Money in the Temple of Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus in Virtual Reality
April 30th to May 30th, 2025
From April 30th at the Museum August Kestner: thanks to the latest virtual reality technology, visitors can walk through the Herodian Temple, one of the most impressive buildings in the ancient Mediterranean world. Through playful interaction with avatars and 3D models of authentic coins, they can actively experience how money was handled in the Jerusalem Temple at the time of Christ: from exchanging foreign currency at the money changers' tables to pay the temple tax, to buying doves as sacrificial animals, as documented in biblical texts. Immerse yourself in the virtual reality of Jesus' time to visit the central sanctuary of ancient Judaism and solve exciting puzzles about the use of coins in the Temple!
Art and Cult
December 13th, 2024 to June 29th, 2025 (extended)
The objects bequeathed to the University of Tübingen by Dr Claus Pelling and Dr Dr h.c. Marie Luise Zarnitz are on par with the Berlin collection of the same donors. They consist of artefacts from various cultures, especially richly painted and inscribed ceramics, jade sculptures, and gold objects. The impressively beautiful pieces mainly come from Mesoamerican cultures, in this case the Maya, Chupícuaro and Zapotecs, but also from Southamerican peoples such as the Chavín, Paracas, Tumaco, and Chimú. The objects date from approximately 1000 BCE to the arrival of the Europeans.
Dissolving the Boundaries of the Line
May 6th to July 25th, 2025
The exhibition presents selected works by Koho Mori-Newton that are understood as graphic reflections on drawing itself, the different qualities of the line and its complex processes of perception. Mori-Newton, whose work is situated between Western conceptual art and East Asian aesthetics, explores the line less as a means of representation than as an elementary trace of seeing. As a result, his works often deliberately avoid traditional forms and attributions of meaning, creating an open artistic space of thought through fluidity, repetition, variation and correction.
Current
Current
Current
Anatomy Unbound
April 17th, 2023 to September 30th, 2025 (extended)
This exhibition was developed in three research projects by students of history and medicine under the direction of PD Dr. Henning Tümmers and Leonie Braam, M.A. (Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine) and Prof. Dr. Benigna Schönhagen and Stefan Wannenwetsch, M.A. (Grave Field X Project at the Institute for Historical Geography and Ancillary Historical Sciences). The interdisciplinary project is being developed in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hirt (Institute for Clinical Anatomy and Cell Analysis) and Prof. Dr. Ernst Seidl (Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT).
Endangered Beauty
April 6th, 2025 to February 15th, 2026
With the project „Endangered Beauty. Künstlerische Portraits einheimischer Orchideen" (Artistic portraits of native orchids), Tamara Schmidt completed her degree in photographic design in 2020. The photographs highlight the beauty of these small, often inconspicuous orchids and convey technically sophisticated macro photography as well as the precarious conservation status of this fascinating group of plants. Using additional photographs, Tamara and Tobias Schmidt show an exhibition together with the Botanical Garden of the University of Tübingen which shows the beauty and interesting facts around orchids.
Colonial Shadows
from January 22nd, 2025
Elisabeth Krämer-Bannow, who was part of the expedition as self-taught illustrator, photographer and ethnologist, used her access to the women of Palau to document their daily lives and culture from a rare perspective. While male explorers often lacked access to this world, she was able to provide intimate insights that often went unobserved in ethnological research at the time. Her watercolours and photographs, on display in the exhibition, offer a vivid picture of Palauan life and a critical reflection on the colonial view of the period.