The big questions are always the same

Art is for ALL OF US!

But why is that so? What does art have to do with us as individuals? Why is engaging in art worth the effort? Or simply visiting a museum?

In the best case, art raises questions. In some cases, it even provides answers. For art touches upon the essential themes of our lives: longing, poverty, justice, hope, pain, faith, community, freedom etc. These themes are timeless, fundamental and oftentimes also cross-cultural in nature. They are the themes everyone has their own attitude toward… or is looking for and developing one. Yet above all, art enables us to see the world differently than we usually do: by allowing us to look into past eras or by directly confronting us with the one we are living in today. This makes art an important medium for our society: for entering into a dialogue about ourselves, our values, ideas, longings or also our fears.

Not just since the corona pandemic has there been a new and increased awareness for such century-old questions concerning how we actually want to live together as a society. The campaign THE BIG QUESTIONS launched by the Hamburger Kunsthalle encourages you to deal with the central questions of society by engaging with art. It intends to illustrate in a very straight-forward way: what you see and may experience in the museum, these master works from 700 years, they have something to do with you – they affect us directly and immediately.