Does faith need a space? Sermons can actually be preached under the open sky. At the same time, the Old Testament already describes buildings in detail, such as Solomon’s Temple or Ezekiel’s Vision of the Third Temple. Perhaps the answer to the question lies in the things of faith, the devotionals, the religious art.
A museum is, of course, no temple. Yet Peter Zumthor designed the newly opened in 2007 building of the Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln with its clear, massive, yet graceful forms, more in line with the traditions of the Old Testament temples than with the style of the WWII‑bombed Romanesque church St. Kolumba, with its Gothic windows, over whose ruins the new museum “Kolumba” arose.
From the outset, Stefan Kraus, the curator of the Archdiocesan Museum, was involved. Since 2008 he shaped Kolumba as its director and led its thematic annual exhibitions. At the end of 2025 Kraus was bid farewell. Where, in fact, every exhibition of Kolumba extols the diversity of the collection and shows how, from late antique art through glass vessels, monstrances, depictions of popular piety, to works of modern and postmodern art, each piece can be presented with the same respect, how should one honor Kraus’s work at his farewell in a special way? – With the objects of a secret collection!
“The Kolumba Sentimental Museum. A History of the Museum in 36 Objects.” Kolumba – Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne, until August 14. Catalogue (Kolumba Verlag Cologne): 24 euros
Stefan Kraus and his staff curate a small collection of special objects, one might say: finds or things that occur. They form the “Musée Sentimental de Kolumba.” Twenty-five objects from this collection are now on display. There is, for example, a white construction helmet with a small Lego sticker. Kraus wore the helmet on the Kolumba construction site, mindful of his role amidst architects and craftsmen. A bath toy duck in pirate attire and a small plastic ball attest to the museum’s encounter with the carnival procession passing by.
“Chanel Le Vernis” Nail Polish
A drilled copper pipe tells of a nearly prevented massive water damage. Everyday objects and, at the same time, proud bearers of not-at-all banal stories. There is the bottle of Chanel Le Vernis nail polish in color 143 “Diva.” When the artist Susanne Kümpel was asked, on the occasion of her Kolumba exhibition, about the color of the cover of the accompanying publication, this nail polish was her answer. Since Kümpel shuns crowds, they organized a preview opening in a small circle, during which everyone present painted a fingernail with 143 “Diva.”
You strongly experience here the psychological dimension of the space. Long, narrow stairs flanked by walls lead into the glow of rooms not yet visible, touching fundamental experiences beyond language. The small thresholds in the floor, the unusual room proportions, they communicate with all exhibited objects—no, with almost all.
Deep in the sight of the tiny, yet meticulously labeled transport props of Paul Thek’s mummy-like “Fishman” made of latex. Yet Thek’s work, created in 1988 in New York and who died of AIDS, is absent. Only the lovingly prepared exhibition guide notes the immense fragility of the work, with no reference here to the globally significant collection of the American artist in Kolumba’s holdings, but with a glance toward the next sentimental object one senses a dissolution into one’s own thought-world.
The museal and architectural elements disappear in what appears there as a small special exhibition slipping into the annual show “Make the Secrets Productive!” In this way, the Musée Sentimental answers the question of faith and space. Faith needs space, the space to think freely, the experiential space to disengage from moments of physical limits. A space for individual engagement with questions and stories.
Daniel Spoerri, Marie-Louise von Plessen and the Things
With this aim, the Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri and Marie-Louise von Plessen, in the late 1970s, between art and the then-new perspectives of the historical sciences, developed the concept of the Musée Sentimental, a collection of seemingly incidental things, sometimes an allusion or a piece that points to a larger whole, sometimes an anecdote or a philosophical object.
When Spoerri realized his concept for the first time in 1979 at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, the young Stefan Kraus was impressed. Now it is his objects that impress. A painted wooden reliquary bust from the 14th century, in which it is not clear whom it depicts, nor whether the reliquary belongs to the depicted person, fundamentally asks about faith and materiality.
What do things attest to? The splendid “Madonna with the Violet” by the Master of the Late Medieval Cologne School, Stefan Lochner, was lent to the Musée Sentimental. Looking across the tables, Lochner’s delicate violet in the hand of the Madonna corresponds with a small, handmade paper bouquet that Mariam Nazari, a pupil, made on a Cologne trip and donated to the Kolumba Museum.
From Thought to History
It is only a small axis of view that, as a thought, captures the stories of all the displayed objects: What is worth preserving? The church can today face this sentimental question. In art, the act of touching, the cute, remains a total taboo. Is it because contemporary art often condenses subtle feelings into loud pathos? Thus the delicate memory exhibition and the subtle parallel history of Kolumba Museum under Stefan Kraus’s leadership becomes a lesson: it ascribes value to the smallest things and senses the spirit of the objects. If this is in the service of faith, the space has a very pragmatic value as a place that preserves the things.
