With The Cool and the Cold. Painting in the USA and the USSR 1960-1990, an exhibition of works from the Cold War era opens at the Gropius Bau in Berlin on September 23, 2021. The focus will be on works that illuminate the East-West conflict and thus place the two world political power centers in an art historical dialogue. The 125 exhibits by a total of 80 artists come from the holdings of the Ludwig Collection and six museums from around the world. Among them are greats such as Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns and Jackson Pollock.
The examination of the events of the Cold War takes place during the exhibition not only by means of paintings: On the first floor of the Gropius Bau, visitors simultaneously gaze upon the remains of the Wall and the Topography of Terror memorial; monuments that are conditioned by the museum's specific location directly on the former course of the border, but whose proximity to the content makes them anything but a sideshow of the exhibition.
Focusing on the political era of the Cold War, questions about the artistic approach to freedom, aesthetics, and political ideology - both individually and in society as a whole - will be dealt with over three decades in the Gropius Bau until January 9, 2022.
