»Class Society«: Lars Eidinger and Stefan Marx in Dialogue with Old Masters at Hamburger Kunsthalle

In the Netherlands of the 17th century, genre painting developed into the preferred genre among wealthy citizens and merchants. Partly ironic depictions of peasant life, elegant interiors, and family scenes painted in a realistic style flooded the art market in ever-increasing numbers and found ample buyers. The works shown in the exhibition were arranged in eight chapters, the titles of which are, for example, Representation of the Woman, Writing and Receiving Letters, or Games and Pastimes. The final part of the tour is Images of Society Then and Now. The contemporary photographs and video works by Lars Eidinger and the written pictures by Stefan Marx have been integrated into the tour and call for a different view of the paintings of the Old Masters.

Parallels of the society of that time and today are shown. Not so much in the direct daily routine, but in the view of life and the motivation to depict everyday life artistically. Jan Steen's pub scene is just as much an observation of everyday life as Eidinger's photographs; at the same time, it exhibits comic traits like Marx's script painting. Despite all the changes of the last centuries, has the nature of man and thus society as a whole ultimately remained the same? With this show of 150 works, the Hamburger Kunsthalle aims to trigger such and similar fundamental questions and to highlight the importance of (old) art for social life.