"A Torpedo Moving Through Time":
The Museum
of Modern Art in Berlin
With over 200 works, the collection of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York will be on tour in Berlin for seven
months. Supported by Deutsche Bank, the exhibition's exclusive sponsor,
Mies van der Rohe's New National Gallery will be transformed into the
"MoMA in Berlin" from 2/20 through 9/19/2004. On the sole
European station of this transatlantic art show, the history of
twentieth-century art can be experienced close hand - and with it, the
legend of the world's most well-known museum.
René Magritte: The False Mirror , 1928,
©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2004
The Starry Night is one of
Vincent van Gogh's most famous paintings, but probably also one of his
most enigmatic; its meaning has to be reinterpreted again and again. The
swirls of the turbulent night sky that van Gogh painted in 1889 in the
sanatorium at Saint-Rémy not only reflect the visions of a tortured
spirit, but also the premonition of an emerging European avant-garde whose
artistic upheavals would help shape the dawning 20th century.
Now,
The Starry Night will be coming to the German capital along with over 200
additional masterpieces from the collection of New York's Museum of Modern
Art. The occasion marks a spectacular exhibition event for Berlin. From
February 20 through September 19 2004, the MoMA will be showing icons from
the art of the past century in the New National Gallery on the
exhibition's sole European station. Among the works shown will be
Cézanne's
The Bather,
Dance by
Matisse, and
Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl.
Roy Liechtenstein: Drowning Girl, 1963,
©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2004,
Philip Johnson Fund (by exchange) und
Schenkung Mr. und Mrs. Bagley Wright © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
It's the first time the MoMA collection can be seen outside America in such
comprehensive form. The commitment on the part of the
Friends of the National Gallery as well as the generous support of
Deutsche Bank AG have contributed towards making a unique pioneer
achievement possible: for seven months, the National Gallery will be using
all of its exhibition space to show outstanding proponents of European
Modernism together with great American artists such as
Pollock, Hopper
, Cornell
, and
O'Keefe - transforming itself into The MoMA in Berlin.
|
"This museum is a torpedo moving through time, its head the
ever-advancing present, its tail the ever-receding past of 50 to 100 years
ago," the founding director of MoMA, Alfred H. Barr Jr., remarked in
reference to the museum's concept, which had been heavily influenced by
Bauhaus ideas. This remark appears programmatic for the transatlantic art
exhibition, which also provides a look back over the social developments
of an era deeply scarred by world wars and National Socialist terror.
The path through the exhibition traces the artistic canon of the 20th century.
Beginning with van Gogh, Cézanne, and
Rousseau as the heroic painters of the late 19th century, the two
protagonists of the 20th century,
Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, follow with large work complexes.
United throughout an entire lifetime in a friendship scored by rivalry,
Picasso viewed Matisse, who was ten years his elder, as his only equal
among living artists. Matisse's Dance (1909) leads on to Picasso's
Three Musicians (1921) and
Léger's large-scale painting Three Women/Le Grand Déjeuner
(1921). The century's metaphysicians are also present:
Malevich with his Suprematist Composition: White on White from
1918; and
Mondrian, with Composition No. 1 from 1926.
Salvador Dali: The Persistance of Memory
(Persistance de la mémoire), 1931,
©Demart pro Arte B. V. / VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
Surrealism provides
another highpoint of the exhibition. Along with paintings by
Miró, Tanguy
, and
Dalí's The Persistence of Memory (1931),
Marcel Duchamp's "Readymades" and
Meret Oppenheim's fantastic fur-covered Object from 1936 describe
an absurd world in which everything is possible. The encounter between
European artists who had fled the National Socialists and the young
American painters ultimately gave rise to the path-breaking New York
School. Jackson Pollock's Number 1 (1948) and
Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk (1963-69), both of which will be
greeting the visitor in front of the National Gallery, have written
history, as did
Robert Motherwell's Elegy to the Spanish Republic. With
Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy
Warhol, Claes Oldenburg
etc., Pop Art has carried on the triumph of American art to this day. Yet the
exhibition ends with the work of a German artist,
Gerhard Richter's group of works on the
Red Army Faction,
October 18, 1977 from 1988.
In the reunified capital city, the
reference points to Berlin as a laboratory of Modernism at the beginning
of the 20th century and to the reciprocal relationship between European
and American art of the post-war era come full circle. In a certain sense,
the exhibition site Berlin also fulfils a long-ago desire - it was none
other than
Mies van der Rohe himself, the architect of the
New National Gallery, that Alfred Barr wanted to build his New York museum.
The exhibition MoMA in Berlin will be shown from 2/20 through 9/19/2004
in the New National Gallery in Berlin. Open Tues., Weds., Sun. 10 a.m. - 6
p.m.; Thurs., Fri., Sat. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. Tickets can also be obtained at
Deutsche Guggenheim.
K.v.G.
|
