SPLENDOR AND MISERY

NEW OBJECTIVITY IN GERMANY

24th May–29th Sept. 2024 | Level -1

The Leopold Museum presents the first comprehensive exhibition on German New Objectivity
in Austria. Showcasing art from 1920s and 30s Germany, the exhibition features around 150 exhibits from numerous international museums and private collections, including some 100 paintings, around 40 works on paper, as well as photographs and archival material. The art movement of New Objectivity goes back to the exhibition, organized in 1925 by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub at the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, called Die Neue Sachlichkeit. Deutsche Malerei seit dem Expressionismus [New Objectivity. German Painting since Expressionism]. The new style provided a contrast to the inwardness of Expressionism which, with its individualistic model, was no longer able to document the intellectual and political crisis situation and its reality. Hartlaub, who acted as Director of the Kunsthalle Mannheim from 1923 until his dismissal as part of the repressive National Socialist art policy in 1933, distinguished two movements within the style of New Objectivity: a politically oriented left wing, characterized by a Verism critical of society, and a right wing, shaped by Classicist and neo-romantic tendencies.

• PRESS IMAGES Splendor and Misery (pdf, 683 kB)

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