Humboldt Forum Foundation: Hartmut Dorgerloh’s contract extended until 2028

He stays for another five years: The Board of Trustees of the Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace has extended the contract of General Director Hartmut Dorgerloh by a further five years until the end of May 2028. That would put Dorgerloh in office for ten years.

The Chair of the Board of Trustees is Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth. She welcomed the extension of the contract for the art historian, monument conservator and cultural manager, who is celebrating his 61st birthday this Wednesday: “With Hartmut Dorgerloh we are on the right track”. Despite the challenges of the corona crisis, he managed to “make the Humboldt Forum a much-visited place and firmly establish it in the German cultural landscape. For the future it will be important to further develop the Humboldt Forum, especially in terms of content”.

This includes further improving cooperation between the actors. The Humboldt Forum is used by the State Museums with the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art, by the Humboldt Laboratory of the Humboldt Foundation and by the City Museum with the exhibition “Berlin global”.

Hartmut Dorgerloh thanked the Board of Trustees for the trust they had placed in him and emphasized that his work so far was “primarily the beginning of very special, instructive and new relationships”, “to the diverse urban society, to our national and international cooperation partners as well between us actors of the Humboldt Forum”. He wants to deepen and expand these connections.

The upcoming challenges included “securing the financial resources for an attractive program work and sustainable operation”. It is also important to create the structural framework in order to meet the demands that are made of the foundation. An organizational structure is required that promotes effective and innovative work. With regard to the reform process of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), he is committed to intensifying cooperation with museums and sharpening the special programmatic profile of the Humboldt Forum.

The personnel is also interesting against the background of a complicated organizational structure with unclear responsibilities. Recently, in connection with the SPK reform, Claudia Roth thought aloud about perhaps moving the Humboldt Forum under the umbrella of the Prussian Foundation.

Dorgerloh would then not only have to solve the tricky task of having to deal with the wrangling over competences, which he himself criticized, and of having to get in touch with those responsible for the exhibitions, who are largely autonomous. In SPK President Hermann Parzinger or his successor, he would then also have a boss who was above him. Parzinger will retire in 2026.

During the debate about a reorientation of the Humboldt Forum, the suggestion was made that the exhibition “Berlin global” could move out of the palace. Former Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer brought up the idea of ​​the state of Berlin withdrawing. The debate about the major donors for the castle does not come to rest either. (tsp)