PART 2: AU RENDEZ-VOUS DES AMIS | Modernism in Dialogue with Contemporary Art from the Sammlung Goetz

Installation view room 9

Thomas Schütte, Stahlfrau Nr. 12, 2003, Sammlung Goetz, München
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021;
Max Beckmann, Frau mit Mandoline in Gelb und Rot, 1950
© Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Moderne Kunst in der Pinakothek der Moderne, München
Photo: Haydar Koyupinar

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PART 2: AU RENDEZ-VOUS DES AMIS | Modernism in Dialogue with Contemporary Art from the Sammlung Goetz

Pinakothek der Moderne | Kunst
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The dialogue between Classical Modernism and contemporary art from the Sammlung Goetz continues to be extremely popular with the public. As a consequence, the exhibition has not only been extended until 16 January 2022 but enriched by the curators with new juxtapositions. Some of the thematically conceived rooms have been completely redesigned and and show works by Carla Accardi, Michael Buthe, Marcel Odenbach, Tom Sachs, Egon Schiele, Cindy Sherman, Tatiana Trouvé, Luc Tuymans, among others, which now complement the presentation and create further dialogues between Classical Modernism and contemporary art.

The exhibition ‘Au rendez-vous des amis’ resulted from the idea of presenting a few works from the Sammlung Goetz in the Pinakothek der Moderne with the aim of rendering the diverse reciprocal relationships between contemporary art and Modernism visible. Curatorial work on the collections, however, revealed an almost inexhaustible potential, resulting in an extensive exhibition of over 200 works.

With its multitude of startling new artistic styles, Modernism has remained a source of inspiration for successive generations of later artists. It paved the way for the liberation of perspective, proportion, and colour from formal verisimilitude. This living legacy is vividly reflected in the display of modern art from our own collection, now presented in relation to contemporary works from the Sammlung Goetz. The joint display leads to a broadening of artistic media, away from the traditional collection core of paintings to include photography, sculpture, and textile art. Many of the more recent artists also take a critical look at this legacy of Western culture and question how art, then and now, deals with the body, gender, and identity.

Dialogführung zur Ausstellung "Au rendez-vous des amis"

14 Sep 2021 | 17:00 - 18:00 | Führung "aus erster Hand" | Mit Karsten Löckemann und Oliver Kase
Begrenzte Anzahl an Plätzen | Teilnahmemarken ab 30 Minuten vor Beginn an der Information, solange freie Plätze vorhanden sind.
Bitte buchen Sie im Vorfeld Ihres Besuchs ein Zeitfenster über München Ticket. (Informationen zu den Tickets unter www.pinakothek.de/tickets)

View of the exhibition: Room 3 | Mond und Sterne

In 1912 Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc published ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ almanac. As Kandinsky explained, the title was inspired by their fondness for horses and riders, and blue as the colour of the ‘infinite’. As the editorial team behind ‘Der Blaue Reiter’, by 1911 and 1912 Kandinsky and Marc had already organized two legendary exhibitions, which took place at the Munich galleries Thannhauser and Goltz. In addition to French and Russian artists, August Macke and Paul Klee also exhibited works there. Both Marc and Kandinsky strove to evoke the sublime and relate inner experience with their art. Kandinsky used the term ‘Improvisation’ to refer to works intended to convey his internal impressions, experienced in a semi-conscious state; from 1910 they culminated in colourful abstract compositions. Between 1912 and 1914 Franz Marc, longing for what he interpreted as the purity and innocence of nature, developed his main artistic theme: animals. In the spring of 1914, August Macke and Paul Klee went on a journey to Tunis that has since become legendary. The intensity of the light, the rich array of colours, and the architecture of the Tunisian towns left a lasting impression on the artists and their work. In the 1970s Michael Buthe started creating large-scale works which often took the form of installations, notable for their vivid colours and fantastic narrative elements. What he shared with the artists of ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ was a fascination for North African cultures, a longing for spirituality, and an aspiration to draw on more than Western influences in his art-making practice. Dividing his time between Cologne and Marrakesh, he united East and West, Islamic mysticism and Rhenish Catholicism in a visual language full of magical overtones. Assuming the name ‘Michel de la Sainte Beauté’, he lent expression to the extraordinary spiritual universe that informed his life.

Image:
Michael Buthe, Im Zeitalter der Fische, 1988, Sammlung Goetz, Munich © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021
Franz Marc, Tirol, 1914, © Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Moderne Kunst at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Photo: Haydar Koyupinar

View of the exhibition: Room 4 | Exodus

The experience of the First World War (1914–1918) left deep scars on an entire generation of artists across Europe. Certain recurring motifs characterize the art of this period, such as the apocalyptic visions of the period immediately preceding the war, the existential self-questioning of the war years, and the contemplative, painful re-examination of the events in its aftermath. In ‘Agonie’ Egon Schiele employs earth tones and an emotionally powerful expressionistic style to depict a dramatic fight to the death. With its expressively elongated limbs, Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s larger-than-life sculpture ‘Der Gestürzte’ (The Fallen) represents an immediate monument to the many young Europeans who were losing their lives in the war at the time. Equally distressing is the scene of the sombre nocturnal landscape with lanterns which Walter Gramatté painted in 1918. In his group portrait ‘Die Auswanderer’ (The Emigrants), Oskar Kokoschka captures an uprooted generation always unsure of home. The feeling of loneliness and displacement, of having lost your home, that is associated with fleeing war has continued to occupy artists until today. The collage ‘im Land der Dichter und Denker’ (in the land of poets and thinkers) by Marcel Odenbach shows an excerpt of a letter written by his aunt to her sister after she left Nazi Germany for Brazil in 1939. ‘Exodus, 1975’ by Stan Douglas is part of a series which can be read as a fictional photo-reportage of sorts. Douglas reimagines the departure of dispossessed Portuguese from Angola after the country achieved its independence from European colonial rule. The sculptures of Italian artist Tatiana Trouvé – whose work explores the relationship between absence and presence, memory and the present moment – resemble objects discarded by people on the move. 

Image:
From left to right.: Marcel Odenbach, im Land der Dichter und Denker, 2019, Sammlung Goetz, Munich © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021; Oskar Kokoschka, Die Auswanderer, 1916-17 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021; Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Der Gestürzte, 1915-16 © Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Moderne Kunst at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Marcel Odenbach, Stadt der Helden, 2015, Sammlung Goetz, Munich © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021
Photo: Haydar Koyupinar

EXHIBITION VIEW: ROOM 5 | MYTHISCHE FIGUR

By forgoing the imitation of natural forms and proportions, Cubist sculpture opens up new ways of seeing the human body. It captures the dynamics of movement, translating it into rhythmic, abstract geometric volumes. Expansive masterpieces of modern art, such as Alexander Archipenko’s ‘Boxers’ and Rudolf Belling’s ‘Triad’, were created in this manner.

The German-French artist Hans Arp was influenced by Cubist ideas,but also looked to nature’s organic forms for inspiration, thus developing his singular abstract style. Arp’s sculptures are characterized by soft rounded shapes and curved lines, which reveal nature’s hidden processes of growth and transformation. On display alongside Arp’s sculptures are fragile-looking plaster objects and sensuous, tactile bronzes by the Czechoslovakian artist Mária Bartuszová. Although she worked behind the Iron Curtain for many years, isolated from the Western art world, her work nevertheless bears the influence of Constantin Brâncu ¸si, Henry Moore, and Hans Arp. However, Bartuszová’s biomorphic abstract sculptures have an unmistakable sensual and erotic, psychological quality. Some of the small works, mostly plaster casts of organic forms, were made to be held in the hand; others were integrated into nature in site-specific installations. The sculptures evoke associations of painful transformation processes, birth and pulsating life, but also dying and death.

Photo: View of room 5 of the exhibition with works by Pablo Picasso (back left), Alexander Archipenko (front left) and Hans Arp (back center and right). Photo: Haydar Koyupinar © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020 / Succession Picasso

Exhibition catalogue

Ed. Oliver Kase, Karsten Löckemann
Contributions by I. Goetz, O. Kase, K. Löckemann, B. Maaz, K. Vossenkuhl.
Artist's statemens by Huma Bhabha, Jonathan Lasker, Tobias Pils, Andrea Zittel and others. 
Text: English / German
176 pages, 100 illustrations in colour
17 x 24 cm, hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-7774-3766-8

Available in the museum shop at the Pinakothek der Moderne or at the museum shop online store.

Catalogue at the musem shop Cedon