The new presentation in the Archive Gallery is designed as a "reading room." The focus is the summer of 1937 in Munich, when the new Haus der Deutschen Kunst opened with the first "Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung", and the vilified show "Entartete Kunst" [Degenerate Art] was presented concurrently in the gallery building in the nearby Hofgarten. Historical film documents, publications and material on the history of the building and exhibitions presented in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst highlight these events, which marked a major upheaval in the cultural climate in Germany. The defamatory exhibition was shown in various German cities until 1942; the "Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung," in contrast, took place annually until 1944 in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst and was considered the most important presentation and sales venue of "German" art. More than 9,000 painters, sculptors and graphic artists submitted their work over the years. In the framework of the presentation in the Archive Gallery, the House of German Art's index of artists, in which every applicant was registered from 1938 onwards, will be publicly accessible – in digital form – for the first time.
