Exhibitions/Events

Focus on 1926 Feb. 5 – May 11, 2003 About the exhibition: Back to the roots: the Neue Sammlung's last exhibition before completing its move to the Pinakothek der Moderne is reminiscent of its very first back in 1926. Then, a cross section of the museum's collection was on display in the very same rooms. As part of a cooperation project between the museum and the University of Munich, young history of art students reconstructed parts of the opening exhibition, focusing in particular on posters. The homage to the early days of the Neue Sammlung included early poster art masterpieces that drew attention back in the opening exhibition. The names of these pioneers of the modern poster: Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Th. Th. Heine, Franz von Stuck, Ferdinand Hodler, Ludwig Hohlwein, Lucian Bernhard, Julius Klinger, Albert Weisgerber, Julius Gipkens, and Augusto Giacometto, who hailed from Austria, France, Germany Italy and Switzerland. The era was 1893 to 1926, i.e., from the Japanese movement and Art Nouveau to New Objectivity and the new departures of the 1920s and the founding of the Neue Sammlung. The exhibition venue, and the rooms were the same then as they are today. The venue was the former official residence of the Director-General of the Bavarian National Museum, in which in 1925 the newly founded Neue Sammlung, initially referred to as the "Department of Arts and Crafts" was provisionally housed. The premises consisted of six high, vaulted rooms, five of them in a line, in other words along a single axis, with natural light, beneficial to the art, flowing in through north-facing windows that had originally been intended as festival reception rooms. In front of them the generous foyer with its south-facing loggia opened out on to Prinzregentenstrasse. The exhibition area itself comprised 350 sq. m., which even then was insufficient for the newly founded museum.

The exhibits selected by the students bring to light a wide variety of aspects of the emergence of Modernism, as had been conceived for the opening exhibition in 1926. It begins with Toulouse-Lautrec and his adaptation of Japanese color woodcuts, whose impulse on the emergence of modern poster art is particularly evident here. The poster was once described as a "screaming image". Striving for attention by means of shocking was one of the central "inventions" of the pioneers of posters: Franz von Stuck, for example, the artistic Munich prince, used a giant eye, staring as if it were hypnotizing the observer, for his "Hygiene Exhibition" poster. The magic eye caused a sensation and was copied both in Germany and other countries. The spectrum of the exhibition ranges from the artist as poster designer, in addition to Stuck, for example, Ferdinand Hodler, to the very first everyday graphics and corporate design professional, Lucian Bernhard. Th. Th. Heine is presented as being part of both these worlds just as the painter Albert Weisgerber, the co-founder and first chairman of the "New Munich Secession" is featured for his almost psychedelic posters, which go a long way to explaining the Swinging Sixties' enthusiasm for Art Nouveau and the Secessionist style. The posters were for exhibitions, the art trade, publishers and magazines, which championed the new style, just as much as for carnival balls and expressive dance, but particularly for advertising products. Kaffee-Hag, Stiller shoes, Audi cars, Müller sparkling wine, Pelikan colors, Prowodnik tires etc. are examples from a world that had just discovered the term brand.

Franz von Stuck, International Hygiene- Exhibition, Dresden, 1911, lithography, 90 cm x 60 cm (edged)., Bez.: INTER- NATIONAOLE/HYGIENE=/AVSSTELLVNG/ DRESDEN/MAI-OCTOBER/1911/FRANZ/ VON/STUCK/Litho u. Druck: Leutert & Schneidewind A.-G. Dresden/Gedruckt mit Farben von Beint & Co. Hamburg

Just as in 1926 the main focus is on the development of the poster in Germany, in particular the two leading centers Berlin and Munich and their advocates Ludwig Hohlwein and Lucian Bernhard, who represent the "narrative" or "factual poster". Works from Switzerland and Denmark, two countries that were not directly affected by World War I and in which advertising was able to continue developing almost unscathed, enhance the general picture. In the last room a separate group of posters for the early exhibitions staged by the "Department of Arts and Crafts" and the Neue Sammlung between 1926 and 1929 in these rooms sets the final tone. An installation with all the publications that have appeared in conjunction with Neue Sammlung exhibitions forges a link between the early days right through to the present day: from the very first slender brochure about the halt to publications and exhibitions during the Nazi era through to the opulence of the book for the Pinakothek der Moderne.