In her eyes there is no contradiction in being interested in the art of books and writing on paper in the age of digital media.

On the contrary.

"Interest is increasing," Dorothee Ader observed.

She has been in charge of the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach since the end of 2021 and looks after a collection of 80,000 artist books, writing samples, painter's books, prints, calligraphs, children's books, posters and tapestries.

It includes exhibits from 1900 to the present and originated from the private collection of the type foundry owner Karl Klingspor.

It is an extraordinary art collection, says Ader, but difficult to convey regionally: "But the house is well received internationally."

Catherine Deschka

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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That's why it's important to position yourself even better digitally and to expand networks, according to the museum director.

The museum has long belonged to the Association of European Printing Museums chaired by Stefan Soltek, the former director of the Klingspor Museum.

Ader and her team have just been to the South Korean city of Cheongju, where works from the museum's inventory were on display for the "Jikji" festival until mid-October.

Cheongju celebrates the fact that the oldest book in the world printed with metal type, the Jikji, was created in the city in 1377 – around eight decades before the Gutenberg Bible.

Offenbach, home of lithography

But Ader would also like to better anchor the topic of printing, which is relevant for the city, in Offenbach.

The “Hot Printing” printing festival took place for the first time in the summer on her initiative.

Ader is still enthusiastic about the strong interest of the visitors.

In the courtyard of the Büsing-Palais, artists presented their prints at 50 stands over a weekend, along with workshops, readings and lectures.

Every two years, the festival will be a reminder that Offenbach can look back on a long tradition in the art of printing.

Alois Senefelder invented lithography here in 1796.

To this day, “innovative printing art” is still being created in many small workshops, says Ader.

The Germanist, who was born in Homburg an der Saar in 1979, has been working at the Klingspor Museum since 2013.

She started as a research assistant, built up the museum's pedagogy and over time had various other tasks, working as a curator, taking care of funding and acquisition and taking over the deputy direction in 2019.

This overview, "it helps me a lot now," she says.

In addition to German studies, she also studied book science at Gutenberg University in Mainz.

After completing her studies, she worked as a freelance museum educator at the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz.

Communication for young people is still important to her: "The children's book exhibition is the best-visited one we have." Not only as a museum educator, but also as a mother of three children between the ages of ten and fifteen, she experiences how important it is is to make knowledge practically tangible.