Our Showroom

Berlin Charlottenburg Palace

    Client

  • Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten
  • Date

  • 9th of October 2021 – 9th of January 2022
  • Location

  • Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
  • Involvement

  • Concept, text, voice recordings
  • Links

    Link

How Antoine Watteau Became a pop star!

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the death of the French painter Antoine Watteau. An anniversary that the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation has taken as an opportunity to stage a very special exhibition: "Antoine Watteau. Art - Market - Trade" in Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace is not a large-scale retrospective of the rococo artist. Rather, it focuses on his most famous painting, the "Shop Sign of the Art Dealer Gersaint," and uses its story to tell how Antoine Watteau became the celebrated darling of his time. It shows how pan-European advertising and marketing took hold even then and are quite similar to today's marketing methods - from endless visual duplication to the stylization of an idol. The short life of Antoine Watteau, who died at the age of only 37, thus led to the long after-effect of a European art figure. The exhibition repeatedly succeeds in building bridges to the present - be it from the wide-ranging presentation of souvenirs decorated with the gallant figures from Watteau's paintings to the sweeping evening gown by Vivienne Westwood that provides a brilliant finale. In our NOUS audio tour, we follow this concept of contemporaneity, not only in content but also in the tone and style of the approximately 60-minute tour. The tour is available in German and English. In addition, there is also an audio tour for children and a tour in easy-to-understand language.