Academic literature on the topic 'The Degenerate Art Exhibition of 1937'

As a genre of cultural production, where iconic (painterly or photographic), sculptural, and architectural conventions intersect to represent the uniquely specific and current conditions of experience in public social space, exhibition design by artists has only recently emerged as a category of art-historical study. While earlier discussions of El Lissitzky's design of the Pressa exhibition in Cologne in 1928, an exhibition that likely had the widest-ranging impact and is the central example of such an emerging genre in the twentieth century, might have served as a point of departure,1 Romy Golan's important, relatively recent book Muralnomad2—primarily concerned with the history of mural painting and its various transitions into exhibition design—has to be considered for the time being the most cohesive account of the development of these heretofore overlooked practices. Yet, paradoxically, two of the most notorious cases of the historical development of exhibition design after Lissitzky are absent from her study: the infamous Degenerate Art exhibition that opened in Munich on July 19, 1937 (two days after the opening of Nazi Fascism's first major propaganda building, Paul Ludwig Troost's Haus der Deutschen Kunst, and its presentation of German Fascist art in the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung),3 and the Exposition internationale du Surréalisme in Paris, which was installed by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp six months later and 427 miles to the west, on January 17, 1938, at Georges Wildenstein's Beaux Arts Galleries in Paris.4

Nazism’s Fight against the Art of Decay:The article presents a reading of the exhibition »Entartete Kunst« that took place in Munich in 1937. The exhibition was staged by the Nazi regime as an attempt to prove the dangerous nature of modern art. According to Nazi ideology, modern art was not just a reflection of unhealthy interests or degenerate racial mixings but was in itself a threat to the purity of the soul of the German people. Therefore modern art had to be excluded in order to make room for the appearance of the German people and its eternal art. Contrary to the idea of Nazism as being somehow not modern, the article stresses the modernist aspects of the Nazi ideology through a detailed account of Nazism’s racist ideology.

On 5 August 1937, fulfilling the orders of the Chairman of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskammer der bildenden Künste), a confiscation committee showed up at the City Museum in Stettin, and demanded to be presented by the Director of the institution the Museum’s collection in view of ‘degenerate art’. While ‘hunting’ for the Avant-garde and ‘purging museums’, the Nazis confiscated works that represented, e.g. Expressionism, Cubism, Bauhaus Constructivism, pieces manifesting the aesthetics of the New Objectivity, as well as other socially and politically ‘suspicious’ art works from the late Belle Époque, WWI, German Revolution of 1918–1919, or from Weimer Republic Modernism of the 1920s and 30s. The infamous Munich ‘Entartete Kunst’ Exhibition turned into a travelling propaganda display, presented in different variants at different venues. A three-week show (11 Jan.–5 Feb. 1939) was also held in Stettin, in the Landeshaus building (today housing the Municipality of Szczecin). Provenance studies: biographies of the existing works, often relocated, destroyed, or considered to have been lost, constitute an interesting input into the challenging chapter on German and European Avant-garde, Szczecin museology, and on Pomerania art collections. Side by side with the artists, it was museologists and art dealers who cocreated this Pomeranian history of art. The Szczecin State Archive contains a set of files related to ‘degenerate art’, revealing the mechanisms and the course of the ‘museum purge’ at the Stettin Stadtmuseum. The archival records of the National Museum in Szczecin feature fragments of inventory ledgers as well as books of acquisitions, which provide a particularly precious source of knowledge. The published catalogue of the works of ‘degenerate art’ from the Museum’s collections covering 1081 items has been created on the grounds of the above-mentioned archival records, for the first time juxtaposed, and cross-checked. The mutually matching traces of information from Polish and German archives constitute a good departure point for further more thorough studies.

The young Joseph Goebbels, caught up in the heady mix of ideas and ideals permeating German artistic circles during and after the First World War, expressed both his convictions and his confusions through writing plays. None of these deserve much attention as serious drama: but all shed light on the ideological development of the future Nazi Minister of Culture. While also developing an argument on the wider relationship between Expressionism and modernism, David Barnett here traces that relationship in Goebbels' plays, as also the evolution of an ideology that remained equivocal in its aesthetics – the necessary condemnation of ‘degenerate’ art tinged with a lingering admiration, epitomized in the infamous exhibition of 1937. David Barnett has been Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Huddersfield since 1998, and was previously Lecturer in German Language and Literature at Keble College, Oxford. His Literature versus Theatre: Textual Problems and Theatrical Realization in the Later Plays of Heiner Müller was published by Peter Lang in 1998, and other publications include articles on Heiner Müller, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Rolf Hochhuth, Heinar Kipphardt, Werner Schwab, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Peter Handke.

Exhibition 58: Modern Architecture in England, held between 10 February and 7 March 1937 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), was a notable event. Amidst claims that ‘England leads the world in modern architectural activity’, the exhibition ‘amazed New Yorkers’ and equally surprised English commentators. However, it has not subsequently received any extended investigation. The present purpose is to look at it as a multiple sequence of events, involving other exhibitions, associated publications and the trajectories of individuals and institutions, through which tensions came to the surface about the definition and direction of Modernism in England and elsewhere. Such an analysis throws new light on issues such as the motives for staging the exhibition, the personnel involved and associated questions relating to the role of émigré architects in Britain and the USA, some of which have been misinterpreted in recent commentaries.Hitchcock's unequivocal claim for the importance of English Modernism at this point still arouses disbelief, and raises a question whether it can be accepted at face value or requires explaining in terms of some other hidden intention.

The article analyses two art exhibitions in the context of Czech-Norwegian relations, presenting both the Czechoslovak book exhibition in Oslo (1937) and the Norwegian painting and applied art exhibition in Prague (1938) as important parts in a bilateral cultural dialogue. The promising initial communication in form of a mutual information exchange was soon disrupted by the beginning of World War II and post-war politics.

Quarante années après la parution de l'article de Lucy R. Lippard et de John Chandler, publié dans Art International, la notion de « dématérialisation » apparaît toujours dans les discours sur l'art contemporain. Elle désigne une tendance à l'œuvre dans la création artistique qui dévalorise la matérialité de l'objet, ses qualités plastiques associées à un savoir-faire technique, de même que son caractère unique et permanent. En outre, la dématérialisation de l'art peut être interprétée comme une critique de l'institution muséale et, les propositions artistiques qui répondent à ses préceptes, comme des pièces qui « résistent » à la muséalisation. Affirmant que la muséalisation est l'ensemble des activités de sélection, de documentation et de présentation publique qui octroient, à une proposition artistique, un statut muséal ou qui transforment cette proposition en un objet qui témoigne d'une réalité donnée, comment dès lors des propositions qui n'ont pas de matérialité persistante intègrent-elles les collections muséales? Comment les informations colligées, organisées et enregistrées autour de ces pièces assurent-elles une connaissance juste de celles-ci? En somme, par quelles stratégies, artistes ou professionnels, opèrent-ils la muséalisation de ces pièces contemporaines et, en particulier, des pièces éphémères de type performance? En interrogeant d'un côté la production d'un art contemporain qui remet en question l'objet traditionnel comme finalité du projet artistique et, en questionnant de l'autre les activités muséales traditionnelles et contemporaines, le « document » s'impose comme notion clé pour éclairer la question de la muséalisation de cet art contemporain. Une hypothèse de travail est formulée : certaines propositions contemporaines ne se présentent pas sous la forme d'un objet déterminé qui en constitue le terme, mais plutôt sous la forme d'un ensemble de documents. Cet ensemble de documents constitue ce que nous appelons la « face documentaire » de la proposition artistique. En transposant la notion de paratexte de Gérard Genette aux objets de cette analyse, il est dit que la « face documentaire » a pour fonction principale de présenter, ou de rendre présentes, les propositions artistiques, de réconcilier leurs différents modes d'existence et d'assurer leur muséalisation le plus conformément possible aux intentions des créateurs. C'est à la lumière des sciences de l'information et de la communication, en particulier des travaux de Jean Meyriat et de ceux des chercheurs réunis sous le pseudonyme Roger T. Pédauque, qu'est définie la notion de « document », opératoire dans le concept de « face documentaire ». Une étude de cas est menée. Le corpus est composé de sept pièces éphémères de type performance et de leurs objets associés qui appartiennent à des collections muséales ou à des Fonds régionaux d'art contemporain, en France ou au Canada. L'entretien auprès des professionnels des musées, des artistes et de leurs représentants, de même que la consultation et l'analyse de sources primaires et secondaires, comme les fiches descriptives, les dossiers d'œuvres et les revues spécialisées et les catalogues, constituent les principales méthodes d'enquête. L'analyse procède par l'identification et la mise en évidence, par le récit, des différents destinateurs, formes, fonctions et statuts des documents qui composent la « face documentaire » des propositions choisies. Sont ainsi interrogées, pour chacune des pièces, la création ou la sélection de documents et leur entrée dans une collection muséale. Sont ensuite questionnées la documentation muséale de ces pièces et enfin, leur présentation publique. L'étude des cas permet de dégager deux stratégies principales de muséalisation : la muséalisation articulée autour d'un prolongement matériel qui tend à faire œuvre et la muséalisation articulée autour d'un projet de réitération. Dans les premiers cas, la muséalisation s'accomplit par la sélection et la désignation d'une pièce ou d'un ensemble de pièces et de documents de différents statuts, prédéterminés et identifiés ou non par l'artiste comme celui ou ceux qui tient ou tiennent lieu de la performance. Dans les seconds cas, la muséalisation s'opère par l'obtention d'un droit de réitération, par la sélection et la désignation d'un ensemble de pièces ou de documents de différents statuts, ainsi que par la production ou la reconnaissance d'un « script » de la performance qui vise essentiellement à guider la reprise correcte de la proposition éphémère. L'étude de cas permet en outre de mettre en évidence trois stratégies de présentation publique des « performances muséalisées », soit l'exposition d'un objet ou de plusieurs objets en situation de rencontre, l'exposition documentaire et enfin, la réitération de la performance. Enfin, la recherche montre que la muséalisation de pièces éphémères de type performance redéfinit les activités muséales de la sélection, de la documentation et de la présentation. Elle interroge l'objet de musée comme élément pivot de ces activités. Elle montre aussi qu'une attention plus grande est portée aux productions paratextuelles de ces travaux artistiques, c'est-à-dire à la « face documentaire » de ces derniers ou à la documentation comprise dans une acception élargie. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : art contemporain, document, documentation, exposition, muséalisation, performance, réitération, Guy de Cointet, Esther Ferrer, Claudie Gagnon, Yves Klein, Gina Pane, Tino Sehgal, Françoise Sullivan.

碩士
臺北市立師範學院
視覺藝術研究所
91
Abstract This research encompasses the “Great German Art Exhibition” and the “Degenerate Art Exhibition” held by German Nazi in Munich on July 1937. To examine the political intentions send by the above mentioned exhibitions and the topics induced, which includes, development of history, people and great thoughts, art events and art works…etc. This research will explore in depth on the paintings and sculptures from both the “Great German Art Exhibition” and the “Degenerate Art Exhibition”. This research will also delve into art museum architectures and space accommodations during the “Great German Art Exhibition” and “Degenerate Art Exhibition”. To compare the sponsorship tactics of the art museums on the above two exhibitions, the author discovers Nazi had adopted all forms of propaganda in order to release different political messages send from the above two exhibitions. The “Great German Art Exhibition” encourages audience to search for the German origin via mythical way. The “Great German Art Exhibition” transmits profound thoughts in almost a religious atmosphere where as “Degenerate Art Exhibition” displays the sophisticated, progressive artifacts at the time. However, Nazi’s intention to create a “democratic” atmosphere from the “Degenerate Art Exhibition” was disparaged by the museum patrons. The political environment at the time forces the creation of art to focus on a single culture which is to glorify the greatness of Aryan race. The “Degenerate Art Exhibition” demonstrates twisted freedom of distortion of images from modern arts which forms a strong contrast compares to the “Great German Art Exhibition”. In order to solidify the Nazi regime, the purpose of the above mentioned exhibitions were mainly tools to control the collective consciousness of the German people. The author also attempts to analyze the distinctive political messages send from the above mentioned exhibitions and the effects on the art creation. To differentiate styles from different painters, sculptures from an aesthetic point view under careful scrutiny. To examine the appreciation of beauty during Nazi regime in order to reveal art creation under absolute control, inducement and depression. To discover the real power of the art during that era.