Exhibition: Stephan Schenk – Kreuzweg (Berne)

Between 13 January and 11 February 2018, photogapher Stephan Schenk presents his most impressive cycle “Kreuzweg” (way of the cross/crossing) on the global battles of the First World War in the eponymous exhibition at gallery Kunstraum Oktogon in Berne, Switzerland.

The whole cycle consists of 14 monumental woven tapestries, based on large-format photos of First World War battle landscapes. Schenk, however, did not make classic landscape pictures, but used reduction and abstraction instead: He photographed an area of two by three metres of the respective ground – the individual fighting space of a soldier, as well as the space for being laid at rest.

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Exhibition: Jacques Grison – Devant Verdun (Bar-le-Duc, F)

From 16 November 2017 to 30 March 2018, Jacques Grison presents his photos on the battlefield of Verdun from his series “Devant Verdun” in the eponymous exhibition in the gallery of the département’s administration in Bar-le-Duc (France) präsentieren. Since decades, Grison, who was born in the region, approaches the former battlefield through his photos: His pictures show the wounds of war, still visible in a landscape that was shaped by the fighting one hundred years ago.

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Verdun: Der lange Weg zum Frieden 1916-2016 (Institut Français Berlin)

Institut Français Berlin presents the photo exhibition “Verdun: Der lange Weg zum Frieden 1916-2016” (Verdun: the long way to peace 1916-2016) one hundred years after the Battle of Verdun. Since years, British photographer Michael St Maur Sheil addresses the battle fields of the First World War. The battle changed the landscape, which is visible even nowadays: forts and gun cupolas that were shot to pieces, shell holes and trenches, barbed wire and unexpolded munitions. Continue reading “Verdun: Der lange Weg zum Frieden 1916-2016 (Institut Français Berlin)”

Lecture “‘An artwork, liked by men’ – 100 Years of War as Mirrored by Art” (Berlin)

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.

Warning & Temptation – The Pictorial Worlds of War of Käthe Kollwitz and Kata Legrady (Berlin)

From 30 June until 9 November 2014, Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum in Berlin presents the exhibition Warning and Temptation – The Pictorial Worlds of War of Käthe Kollwitz and Kata Legrady. Two very different artists and their individual examination of war are contrasted with each other; on one hand, the pacifist works of Käthe Kollwitz that have not lost their impact and timelessness over many decades; and on the other hand, the direct and colourful works by Kata Legrady, born in 1974 in Hungary, whose contemporary approach addresses the propagandistic promises of war. In addition, the exhibition will present selected pupil’s works that mainly deal with Käthe Kollwitz as mother and grandmother, who has lost her son Peter during the First World War, and her grandson Peter during the Second World War. Continue reading “Warning & Temptation – The Pictorial Worlds of War of Käthe Kollwitz and Kata Legrady (Berlin)”

Thomas Geve: “There are No Children Here” (Cologne)

From 9 May to 3 August 2014, the NS-Dokumentationszentrum Köln (Nationalsocialism Documentation Centre Cologne, NSDOK) presents the special exhibition “Es gibt hier keine Kinder” – Auschwitz, Groß-Rosen, Buchenwald (“There are no children here”). After his liberation from KZ BuchenwaldThomas Geve, then 15 years of age, drew his memories of life in concentration camps. Proximity to death and the constant subjection to the guards are central to the documentary drawings; equally, they are a testimony of a youth’s will to survive. The NSDOK exhibition shows 75 of his drawings that since 1985 are part of the Yad Vashem collections in Jerusalem

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“No Escape” – Exhibition about the Graphic Novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Osnabrück)

From 27 April until 27 July 2014, the exhibition “Kein Entkommen” (No Escape) about the  graphic novel “Im Westen nichts Neues” (All Quiet on the Western Front) by Peter Eickmeyer will be shown at the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Centre in Osnabrück. In three years’ time, the Melle-based artist made his adaption of Erich Maria Remarque’s world-famous novel, a cornerstone of addressing the First World War in literature. The exhibition includes original drawings from the graphic novel and delivers insight into its making.

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grounded/airborne (Kleine Galerie, Torgau)

Usually, wartist.org contains articles about exhibitions of other artists, movies, galleries and museums. Today, however, we have the pleasure to write on our own issues: ausgebildete Photographer Martin Bayer (educated at Lette-Verein Berlin) presents from 28 February to 10 April 2014 his exhibition grounded/airborne at Kleine Galerie (Torgauer Kunst- und Kulturverein “Johann Kentmann” e.V.). The photos from his series grounded show details of retired military planes; they will be historically commented by some aerial pictures from the First World War. Grounded addresses the medial and artistic aestheticisation of weapons, while both the clear assignment of the pictured objects to historic events and the alleged simple classification into “friend” and “enemy” become desintegrated.

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Zwischen Kaiserwetter und Donnergrollen (Hanover)

From 20 October 2013 until 19 January 2014, the “Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst” (German museum of caricature and the art of drawing, named after Wilhelm Busch) in Hanover will present the exhibition “Zwischen Kaiserwetter und Donnergrollen – Die wilhelminische Epoche im Spiegel des Simplicissimus von 1896 bis 1914” (between “Kaiserwetter” (an old expression for splendid weather) and rolling thunder – the Wilhelmine era in the mirror of Simplicissimus between 1896 and 1914). Since its foundation in 1896, the satiric magazine “Simplicissimus” held the proverbial mirror up to the German society that in the years before the First World War was shaped by domestic and international crises and societal, cultural and technological changes. The exhibition centres around originals of leading satiric fin-de-siècle artists such as Thomas Theodor Heine, Eduard Thöny, Olaf Gulbransson, Bruno Paul, Karl Arnold, Rudolf Wilke, Wilhelm Schulz and Ferdinand von Rezniček. Continue reading “Zwischen Kaiserwetter und Donnergrollen (Hanover)”