Over the Alps:
From Munich to Venice
Surrealist
dolls and antique statues in the Kunstareal in Munich; Concrete Art and a
billionaire’s contemporary collection in Venetian palaces: all that and
much, much more can be had during a trip over the Alps.
The
departure point for our summer trip to Venice is Munich. Before embarking
on our journey over the Alps, however, it’s worth spending a few days here
to enjoy the wide range of art the Bavarian capital has to offer.
Visitors
in front of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich
©Pinakothek
der Moderne, Photo: Haydar Koyupinar
Our
first excursion is to the Pinakothek
der Moderne, where Hans
Bellmer’s surreal, monstrously erotic puppets are on show this
summer, among other things. Not least in opposition to the Aryan body cult
of the Nazis, Bellmer created his deformed and mutilated dolls with
swollen sexual organs from papier mâché, plaster, and metal, drew and
photographed them, and then colored the photographs. On the one hand, the
dolls earned him vicious slander and later internment; on the other, they
opened the doors to the Parisian Surrealists surrounding André
Breton, who enthusiastically admitted him into their circle. Bellmer
was educated as a graphic designer; in 1935, he took part in the large
Surrealism show at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York, and in 1938 he finally emigrated to Paris.
Hans
Bellmer "Céphalopode 1900", 1939/1949
Private
Collection, Switzerland
Hans
Bellmer "La Poupée Poupée", 1935-36
Centre
Georges Pompidou,
Musée national
d' Art moderne, Paris
In addition to its pinacothecas
and the Lenbachhaus,
Munich’s art section harbors another special treasure: in the Glyptothek
is a breathtakingly beautiful presentation of the antique statues King
Ludwig I. collected in Italy and Greece, at the center of which is the Barberinian
Faun. But there’s also much to discover beyond Munich’s central
art attractions. Bogenhausen, east of the Isar, is home to the museum
built in 1993 by the architects Jacques
Herzog and Pierre
de Meuron for the private collection
of Ingvild
Goetz. "I always collect the younger generation, on principle,"
asserts the former gallery dealer. Currently on show are works by the
video artists and art photographers the multimedia exhibition rooms on the
museum’s lower level were built for.
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Wassily Kandinsky, "Studie für Murnau mit
Kirche II", 1910, Private Collection
We’d
also like to recommend a trip to Murnau
in Upper Bavaria, where the Expressionist painters’ group The
Blue Rider spent their summers in the "Russian Villa" from 1911 to
1913. In a refreshingly unpretentious way, the Schlossmuseum
presents works by world-famous artists such as Wassily
Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter,
Franz Marc, and Alexej
von Jawlensky. The museum focuses on the theme "The Landscape around
Murnau" and exhibits geological finds and the city’s history alongside the
masterpieces of its former inhabitants. Afterwards, visitors are free to
explore the moors and lakes Münter painted and to discover the very
expressive colors in nature that make her paintings so remarkable.
Gabriele
Münter "Murnau 1910", (c) Schloßmuseum Murnau
And
on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s
birth, Salzburg has more to offer than this very distinguished birthday.
In the new building of Salzburg’s Museum
der Moderne on the Mönchsberg, the exhibition Black
Box/Chambre Noire by the South African artist William
Kentridge can be seen. Commissioned by the Deutsche
Guggenheim, Black Box/Chambre Noire investigates the 1904
massacre of the Herero
tribe in Southwest Africa carried out by the German colonial army.
William
Kentridge, Untitled,
(drawing
for Black Box/Chambre Noire), 2005
Photo:
John Hodgkiss Deutsche Guggenheim, © William Kentridge
Kentridge’s
films are animations made from his charcoal and pastel drawings, which he
alters, erases, and redraws in an ongoing process. The work consists of a
mechanical miniature theater, animation films, charcoal drawings, and
plastic elements; apart from the massacre itself, it also addresses the
process of coming to terms with guilt.
Museum
der Moderne in Salzburg, Photo Werner Reichel, 2004
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