It is no coincidence that this exhibition was opened these days in SCHIRN in Frankfurt am Main, and I wanted to see it.
The exhibition featured works by 14 artists of the selected period. These artists were subject to expulsion from their usual environment. The National Socialist regime strictly controlled the art of that time, so the exhibition shows the transformations and interpretations of the regime and the war through the eyes of each of the artists.
I will not describe each of the artists, only a few that seemed to me the most interesting.
The Strangling Angel, Jeanne Mammen 1939 – 1942, Tempera on paperboard, SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main [Painting] (Exhibition visit on 18.05.2022)
«In the early 1930s, Jeanne Mammen worked for numerous publishing houses in Berlin as a sought-after graphic designer. She was also able to enjoy her first successes as an artist with a solo exhibition at the Galerie Gurlitt. With the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor, this situation abruptly changed. Many publishers for which Mammen had worked were "Aryanized" or expropriated from their owners, which meant that commissions for illustrations failed to materialize. Though Mammen was a member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts as a commercial graphic artist, there were barely any requests for her work, or those that she did receive were rejected. She instead survived by doing odd jobs. Mammen resolutely withdrew from the art world in Berlin into her small apartment on Kurfürstendamm and maintained contact with only a few friends who had remained in Germany, such as the sculptor Hans Uhlmann. Inspired by Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica, which she saw at the International Exposition in Paris in 1937, Mammen began painting in the Cubist style. The hard design vocabulary suited the topics to which she increasingly dedicated herself after 1940: the war and its direct consequences.» (Annotation for the exhibition, SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main)
This work turned out to be one of the most poignant for me due to its sharp figurativeness. Cubism, which flourished at that time, extremely accurately conveyed the anguish of what was happening. But now living the same nightmare I'm not sure how people perceived this art at that time. I mean that now Russian society has split into two parts. Some support the current regime and others oppose it. Seeing the sharp reaction of Putin's fans, I can assume that in such euphoria, Hitler's supporters in 1933-45 also did not perceive anything that went against the policy of the party. Therefore, I can assume that we fully appreciate the work of Jeanne Mammen only now.
Another persecuted photographer Edmund Kesting preferred to speak truthfully about the catastrophe that was taking place. As in the previous work, the artist directly shows the result of death and destruction. Using a photo montage, the artist demonstrated the skeleton of a man in an oppressed pose by a destroyed city. At the same time, his skull is enlarged for the entire photo, which creates the feeling that even the dead are in horror.
DEATH OVER DRESDEN, from Dresden Dance, of Death, Edmund Kesting, 1945, Photographic composition with positive montage on baryta paper Courtesy Döbele Kunst Mannheim, SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main [Painting] (Exhibition visit on 18.05.2022)
Both the first picture and this photograph directly, but by different means, show the reality of the war.
In contrast, I would like to highlight a few other artists who chose to discuss the war in other ways. Before I visited this exhibition, I also began to think that if I show (draw, depict, make) only the horror that is happening in the war in Ukraine, then in the end it will be a direct repetition of the horror in reality. People who are tired of bad news will not look at my work, and people who hate me because I hate Putin will block and vandalize my art. I thought about whether it would be more correct to speak on the neutral side, so to speak. I mean that if, for example, I scream directly - he is a murderer and a thief, then those who I want to talk to will turn away from me. Those who, in my opinion, are mistaken.
In order to speak with these fans of the terrible Putin regime, it seems to me that I need to speak with everyone in such a language that, step by step, thoughts and ideas arise in their minds of an alternative position.
For example Werner Heldt.
AUTUMN DAY, Werner Heldt, um / ca. 1935, Oil on canvas, Sammlung Röse, SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main [Painting] (Exhibition visit on 18.05.2022)
“After Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor, Werner Heldt decided to go into exile. In 1933, he traveled to Mallorca, where he led a withdrawn life in the western part of the island. Despite the geographic distance, Heldt also occupied himself while in Spain with the events playing out in Germany. In 1935, he wrote the essay "Various Observations on the Masses," in which he deals with the dehumanization of individuals in crowds. He also addressed this topic in his drawings. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War forced Heldt to return to Germany. He became a member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts and moved into a room in the studio community called Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße, where both National Socialist and regime-critical artists worked. As of 1936, Heldt focused primarily on uninhabited urban landscapes, which only appear to contradict his occupation with the masses. In these pictures, he frequently made use of windows, which offered a view of the city, as an additional spatial level. In this way, he played with the concept of "inside" and "outside" and posed questions related to belonging, isolation, and the role of the individual in society.” (Annotation for the exhibition, SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main)
The artist offers to look out of the viewers enclosed space. Get out of his/her comfort zone to determine his place in society. Take responsibility for actions or inactions. This can be confirmed by his words in an essay «Some Observations on the Crowd» from 1927-35: «Being alone is not in fashion these days. [...] belonging to a majority, to a party, [...] that relieves, frees one from personal responsibility.» (Museumsportal Berlin Mass pieces in the rubble [online] At: https://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/de/magazin/blickfange/massenstucke-im-schuttgeroll/ (Accessed 01.06.2022) Through a colorful picture, the artist calls for the thought process of everyone who looks at his art. But not through a direct negative assessment of what happened, but through attractive colors and a call for acknowledgement of the situation through an alternative view - through the window.
Another artist Fritz Winter also moved away from direct information about the war and its horrors.
DRIVING FORCES OF THE EARTH, Fritz Winter, 1944, Oil on paper, on loan from the Westfälischen Provinzial Versicherung Aktiengesellschaft SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main [Painting] (Exhibition visit on 18.05.2022)
Although the artist fought on the territory of Belarus and Russia, and even was a prisoner in Siberia, he continued to express himself through the relationship of light and dark «that symbolically represent the struggle of anti-Fascist artists and intellectuals in Germany.» (Guggenheim [online] At: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/fritz-winter (Accessed 01.06.2022)
This approach is not only close to me but also seems more appropriate than the monstrous images of violence and murder. Russians have a saying - "if you call a person a goat for a long time, then at one fine moment he will bleat." I follow the same path, if you reproduce hatred and show the horror of war, then people can get used to it and, so to speak, stimulate it. And vice versa, if you depict the best qualities of people, perhaps someday they will acquire them.
But the most emotional for me was the video of Ella Bergmann-Michel, which she filmed during the elections to the Reichstag in 1932.
Short video: https://youtube.com/shorts/SlZ6Cu9EuH8
LETZTE WAHL (WAHLKAMPF 1932) FINAL VOTE (ELECTION CAMPAIGN 1932) Ella Bergmann-Michel, 1932/33, 16mm film, 13:00 min, DFF-Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Frankfurt am Main [Painting] (Exhibition visit on 18.05.2022)
From this, it becomes clear that the national tragedy comes en masse. A nation, under the influence of a certain ideology, ultimately chooses what it wants or what this mass was inspired by. I see here an unambiguous parallel in the current situation in Russia in 2022.
Bibliography and references
1. Museumsportal Berlin [online] At: https://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/de/magazin/blickfange/massenstucke-im-schuttgeroll/ (Accessed 01.06.2022)
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