Vinzenz Brinkmann is an archaeologist. Since 2007 he has been head of the Antikensammlung of the Frankfurt Liebieghaus and teaches at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, among others. The researcher, who was born in 1958, is best known for his studies on ancient polychromy, which have been reflected in several exhibitions since 2003, such as "Bunte Götter – Golden Edition" (2021) at the Liebieghaus. The exhibition "Engine Room of the Gods. How Our Future Was Invented", which he curated, can be seen until 10 September.
Eva-Maria Magel
Senior cultural editor Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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Mr. Brinkmann, with exhibits from all over the world, you go through the history of art and science from 5000 years to the present day in "Engine Room of the Gods". How long did you work on the exhibition?
I've had this idea for some time, we have been working on the idea of the exhibition at the Liebieghaus for at least 15 years. Then came the phase of concretization, active research and discussions with possible lenders. We started doing this six years ago. We have been fine-tuning for three years.
The basic idea is the Greek word techne, the interplay of art, science and technology. Why should we rethink this? That almost sounds like a mission?
It is not a mission, but rather an offer, combined with the message that technology should be considered in art. The Greek term "techne" stands for all arts. There is no such distinction in antiquity. Already in Egypt and Mesopotamia, scientific research is being initiated for the large construction projects – in the absence of sufficient natural materials, chemical research is being carried out, and precise surveying technology is also being developed. There is a break in our European narrative regarding the development of technology in connection with aesthetic issues. This rupture must be closed, with regard to the achievements of the Arab-Islamic cultural area, in which ancient philosophy and science flourished long before the beginning of the European Renaissance.
They start with Egypt and Mesopotamia, but at the same time they want us to deal with today.
Exactly, even if you could start with the tour through the exhibition in the present and wander back five millennia. Because man has always dealt with similar questions. Showing how early humans research and accumulate knowledge in order to understand the world is one of our concerns. The fact that there were already high-tech achievements in the third millennium BC is part of the exhibition. In the course of planning the exhibition, we understood to what extent the mechanics, the technology of nature, stimulates and triggers the artistic approach.
But it seems rather the other way around – as if art evokes scientific progress?
Yes, but first you have to observe nature to find out. When Aristotle describes the "construction of man" as a living being, he sees biotechnology, bones, tendons on the one hand, and on the other hand he draws on the automaton theatre of his time, on images that were present to his contemporaries. The ambivalence of what comes first has always been taken up. But I would say with Vitruvius that the observation of celestial mechanics triggers mechanical thinking. Let's let it be dialectical: On the one hand, we reach into nature and see how nature has solved this and that, on the other hand, individual works of art move forward powerfully and demand research and technology up to science fiction in writing and the question, why don't we really do it?
This is one of the theses in the exhibition – that this writing of the ancient texts has also been realized. Another is the invention of the cinematic movement around 100 BC, which you want to prove using two sculptures of a child trying to catch a partridge from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.