Die Zeugenschaft der Abwesenheit. Gezeigte Sammlungsleerstellen zwischen Provenienzforschung, Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik

Since the turn of the millennium, museums in Germany and Austria have begun to exhibit what is no longer in their collections: works confiscated in the “Degenerate Art“ campaign, cultural property lost or displaced in the Second World War, and objects restituted in Nazi-era cases and returned in colonial ones. Each gap in a collection points back to history, not least to the museum’s own. Empty display cases, wall markers, and reproductions are among the means of making these gaps visible, as are contemporary artworks that reflect on the absence rather than compensate for it. Based on a survey of such displays, this paper asks what their marked increase since the mid-2010s reveals about the changing culture of remembrance. It argues that exhibited absence functions as a form of testimony: it makes institutional accountability a matter of public debate, signals a shift in how museums understand themselves, and renders provenance research legible as a practice of remembrance.