15 
N°II 2024   MuseoMag 
DIGITAL DATA 
can help us answer questions such as how has the 
Kutter collection grown over time? What percentage 
are paintings and what percentage are drawings? 
Which works were exhibited in what exhibition? 
Which works were exhibited often, which have not 
been exhibited at all? How many of the works on 
show were part of the museum’s collection at the 
time, and how many works on show in each exhibi- 
tion are part of the museum’s collection today? The 
answers to these questions can be analysed and in- 
terpreted, telling us more about both Kutter’s and the 
Nationalmusée’s history. 
THE MAGIC OF METADATA 
The data on Kutter that we need to answer these and 
many other questions has been gathered and enco- 
ded as part of our ongoing effort to publish our col- 
lections online on MNAHA Collections. You can find 
our entire Kutter collection on there and each work 
is described by selected metadata, i.e., the type of 
work, dimensions and medium, but also the date and 
method of acquisition. Since Kutter’s works are in the 
public domain you can download high-resolution 
images of his works, zoom in closely and analyse his 
technique or even print them out and hang them on 
your walls. 
Because objects are much more telling when they 
are put into context, we didn’t just encode data 
about individual works, but we linked them to the ex- 
hibitions they were a part of. As a part of our efforts 
to both better understand our collection and our ins- 
titutional history, we have started to publish our past 
exhibitions on MNAHA Collections. For each exhibi- 
tion we try to reconstruct the physical exhibition as 
far as we can by assembling the works from our col- 
lection that were exhibited, the exhibition catalogue, 
scans of installation views – if they exist – and a re- 
ference to our archive, where more, not yet digitised 
documents can be found and requested. As such, 
the digital platform doesn’t question the importance 
of archival research, but rather offers an accessible 
tool that facilitates substantive preliminary research. 
MNAHA Collections is designed to display the works, 
their data and context in a way that is intuitive and 
easy to read. However, the data is not necessarily 
presented in a form that someone who doesn’t have 
the necessary technical skills can easily make use 
of. To make it more accessible, we have decided to 
publish thematic datasets on the data sharing plat- 
form of the Luxembourg state – data.public.lu. The 
first dataset is on the works of Joseph Kutter in our 
collection and their exhibition history. It is the same 
one I will be using to prepare the talk Lis Hausemer 
and I will give on Kutter’s reception at the National- 
musée in July. We will use both methods described 
above to look at how the museum both canonised 
Kutter and used him as a symbol of national identity. 
Edurne Kugeler 
Be sure to sign up for the talk 
De Joseph Kutter an der Geschicht 
vum Nationalmusée with Edurne Kugeler and 
Lis Hausemer on 4 July at 6 pm, 
organised as part of our exhibition 
Dem Kutter seng Gesiichter. 
Nei Facettë vun eiser Sammlung.