The anti-utopian art of the New Objectivity comes to Paris

The anti-utopian art of the New Objectivity comes to Paris Otto Dix — Anita Berber — 1925August Sander Secretary of the German Radio WDR From May 11 to September 5, 2022, Centre Pompidou presents an exhibition focusing on the art and culture of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) in 1920s Germany. Otto Dix, Portrait of the dancer Anita Berber (detail), 1925. © Collection Landesbank Baden-Württemberg at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. Photo © Frank Kleinbac. August Sander, Secretary of the German Radio WDR (detail), 1931. © SK Foundation Culture, Cologne “Germany / 1920s / New Objectivity / August Sander,” the first major exhibition on this period organized in France, presents some 900 works and documents, and is organized as an “exhibition within an exhibition” focusing on “Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts” , the portrait series by photographer August Sander (1876–1964). “Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts”, Sander’s magnum opus, is a global portrait of the German society of his time. In the words of the Pompidou Center, “this hugely influential work depicts a cross-section of German society, reflecting the shake-ups and the distortions of the time it was created in”. The exhibition devotes a specific section to Sander’s work, in which “each chapter is rounded off with a set of rarely-displayed documents that highlight central aspects of each section and show August Sander at work. This offers a double layer of context, creating links to both the history of photography and the surrounding exhibition with a special focus on the intellectual exchange between Sander and the group known as Kölner Progressive .” The exhibition, which includes painting, photography, architecture, design, film, theater, literature and music, is divided into eight sections, plus an introduction outlining the aesthetic debate in Germany in the 1920s, just a few years after the end of World War I. “Standardization” shows the progressive abandonment of the expressionist style, which would lead to the emergence of New Objectivity. “Montage” shows the use of this technique, inherited from the Dadaists, by the artists of the New Objectivity. The search for the objective, the interest in subjects such as photography and still life, is studied in “Things,” while “Cold Persona” delves into Helmut Lethen’s idea of how the feeling of humiliation after the defeat in World War I affected German society. The progressive industrialization of Germany, and the attraction of New Objectivity artists to the machine and industry, is studied in “Rationality,” while “Utility” delves into the concept of Gebrauch, the desire for the work of art to be useful to society by being understandable and even educational. “Transgression” studies the redefinition of traditional concepts of gender after World War I, while the last section of the exhibition, “Looking Downwards,” shows the interest on the part of New Objectivity artists in the underprivileged classes, those forgotten or left behind by economic recovery and technological progress. #2022 #Pompidou #theartwolf