Europe-wide: Realism in Modernism

With around 300 rarely shown paintings from all over Europe, the Gunzenhauser Museum is devoting itself to a special exhibition of modern art: broadly diversified and at the same time detailed, it explores the diverse realist movements across national borders. The realistic depiction responds both to the aftermath of the First World War and to art movements such as Expressionism, which for some created a need for order. Arranged by theme, the works by around 60 artists from 20 countries illustrate how artistic trends were exchanged and influenced each other. The artworks tell of poverty and misery, but also of economic upswing, a cultural heyday, the beginning of emancipation and technical progress. Never before has this period of art been presented to such an extent. European Realities. Realism Movements of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe was curated by Anja Richter and can be seen in Chemnitz until August 10.

The starting point for the concept was Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub's eponymous presentation of New Objectivity from 1925, which, after Mannheim and Dresden, made a stop at today's Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz in Chemnitz. Numerous lesser-known voices of modernism are represented in the current show, including Aleksandra Belzowa, Cata Dujšin-Ribar, Petras Kalpokas, Sven Otto Lindström, Milada Marešová, Josep Mompou Dencausse, Stefan Płużański, Arthur Riedel, William Roberts, Ekaterina Savova-Nenova, Niklaus Stoecklin, Kiril Tsonev and Sigismunds Vidberg. With the help of video graphics over a map of Europe, the artists' movements between art centers such as Paris, Rome, Berlin, Dresden, London, Helsinki and Vienna are traced.