With renovation work set to begin in September 2025, the Baden State Museum in the German city of Karlsruhe has been decided that it will move to the nearby Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden—raising alarm amid cuts to the state budget for art and culture.
The Baden State Museum is closing its doors for a renovation of the landmark palace that houses it; the restoration is expected to take five years to complete. The institution holds objects and antiquities in its permanent collection spanning more than 50,000 years of international cultural, art, and regional history.
As part of the move to the Baden-Baden’s space on Lichtentaler Allee, Baden State Museum director Eckart Köhne will oversee both institutions beginning in May 2025 through 2030. The museum’s administrative offices, however, will remain in Karlsruhe.
The Baden-Baden will continue its planned programing through the beginning of 2026, with its first joint presentation with the Baden State Museum expected sometime in mid-2026. The latter museum plans to show rotating exhibitions focused on works from its collection. (Because the Baden-Baden is a kunsthalle, it does not have a permanent collection.)
High staff turnover and dwindling attendance records have left the Baden-Baden “in a challenging situation,” according to a spokesperson from the German culture ministry. As such, Arne Braun, State Secretary for the Baden-Württemberg’s Ministry of Science, Research and Arts, has promoted this decision as beneficial to both institutions. “In many areas of society, we see that new forms of partnership and cooperation between institutions provide more innovation, flexibility, visibility and excitement than if each institution remained in its own cosmos,” he told Monopol.
However, the state claims the kunsthalle will not close permanently and.
But some critics have said that these actions taken by the state government are unprecedented. Outgoing Kunsthalle Baden-Baden director Çagla Ilk, whose contract expires on April 30, 2025, described the a move as “a unique event in the history of the Federal Republic” and has said she believes that the Baden-Baden could potentially be shut down as a result.
Beginning in 2026, Ilk, who also curated the German Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, will become artistic director of Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater, and she plans to take a portion of Baden-Baden’s staff with her in the move.
The German culture ministry, however, has said that the institution will not close permanently, adding that the consolidation of its direction is simply an interim phase to regroup given that the directorship will soon be vacant. (It plans to rehire a director for the Baden-Baden in roughly five years.)
