Indepth Arts News:
"The Strongest Expression Of Our Time - New Objectivity / Neue Sachlichkeit in Hanover"
2001-12-09 until 2002-03-10
Sprengel Museum
Hannover, ,
DE
The time has come to re-evaluate the Hanover artists of the New
Objectivity movement, who, until now, have been examined from an
entirely local perspective. They should be placed in a wider context
and with the insights recent research provide.
The Strongest Expression Of Our Time were the words Grethe
Jürgens used in 1932 to characterise the simple clarity with which
social commentary appeared as images of workers, average people
and those who had lost their social positions in Hanover of the
mid-1920s. Several artists born around 1900, including Friedrich
Busack, Grethe Jürgens, Hans Mertens, Gerta Overbeck, Karl Rüter,
Ernst Thoms and Erich Wegner, formed a loose group of artists in the
provincial capital. It has been more than a quarter of a century since
the last extensive exhibition of these works was mounted (at the
Kunstverein Hannover). This would suffice as a reason to re-examine
the most significant pieces from a 21st century perspective and to
compare them with images by their contemporaries such as Dix,
Grosz, Radziwill, and Schad. The Strongest Expression Of Our Time
show will encompass more than 300 oil paintings and works on paper.
The unique elements of the Hanover group have rarely been
examined. Abstraction, Constructivism and Merz were strong
influences on these artists. This expresses a tendency away from the
post- expressionism of the early 1920s towards clear
repesentationalism that is different from developments in other
centres of New Objectivity, such as Munich, Karlsruhe, Cologne,
Berlin and Dresden.
The exhibition will not only include familiar works; recent acquisitions
by the Sprengel Museum Hannover will be shown as well, including
previously unknown pieces. Additional works come from more than 50
private collections, much of which has not been previously available
to the public. The catalogue (in addition to the documentation in the
show) provides thorough research as well as art historical and
theoretical essays by significant experts, full of new insights into what
is a complex phenomenon.
Another important aspect of the exhibition is the convenient myth of a
watershed in 1933. New Objectivity, in Hanover and further afield,
was not always branded as Degenerate Art; on the contrary, it was
celebrated as the New German Romanticism. Many painters
included in this movement, and not only Hanover artists (such as
Adolf Wissel and Bernhard Dörries), exhibited extensively during the
Nazi period in the 1930s. Other representatives also participated in
exhibitions during this period and Thoms and Rüter were even in the
infamous Great German Art exhibition in Munich. The question here
is: to what extent were New Objectivity and Nazi painting the same
or differentNULL These issues have not been discussed in the context of
Hanover, or they were carefully kept secrets. New insights into these
works can be found by evaluating them in both a historical and
cultural manner.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Niedersächsische
Sparkassenstiftung and Stadtsparkasse Hannover.
Catalogue 44 DM (22.50 EUR)
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