An exhibition, “Kirchner and the Berlin Street,” will be presented from August 3 to November 10 in the Special Exhibitions Gallery, third floor, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
This exhibition is a focused investigation of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s (German, 1880‱938) renowned Berlin street scenes of 1913‱915. It features seven major paintings from the series, the first occasion such an extensive group has been brought together. These works have come to symbolize big city life with all its contradictions, yet Kirchner’s choice of motif was the streetwalker, not the typical urban environment. His paintings embody both allure and alienation by evoking excitement and nighttime glamour, as well as loneliness, decadence and danger.
Joining these paintings are 70 works on paper that further our understanding of Kirchner’s exceptional series of paintings.
These striking paintings are considered not only the high point of Kirchner’s career, but also a milestone in German Expressionism. Kirchner, known as a member of the Brücke artists’ group, had moved in 1911 from Dresden to Berlin, a teeming metropolis and the cultural center of Germany. Here, his Expressionist painting took a new turn and the charged atmosphere of the city was reflected in acute perspectives, jagged strokes, dense angular forms and caustic color. The fact that this atmosphere was captured on the eve of World War I only adds to the high-pitched tensions embodied in these paintings.
To contextualize the street scene series, this exhibition explores Kirchner’s choice of motif through contrasting examples of his work, including more typical city views and also his various approaches to the eroticized female figure in nudes and cabaret dancers. In addition, the artist’s working process is revealed through sketchbook studies, larger scale works in pen and ink, pastel and charcoal, as well as etchings, woodcuts and lithographs, all on the theme of the street scenes.
Curator for the exhibition is Deborah Wye, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller chief curator of the department of prints and illustrated books at MoMA, where she has worked since 1979. Wye has organized more than 25 exhibitions for MoMA on a range of subjects. Among these are the first sculpture retrospective of Louise Bourgeois in 1982 and that artist’s first print retrospective in 1994.
Kirchner and the Berlin Street is the most extensive consideration of Kirchner’s street scene paintings in English, a richly illustrated volume with an essay by Wye that examines the series through contrasting motifs in the artist’s oeuvre, as well as his creative process. The book is distributed to the trade through Distributed Art Publishers (DAP) in the United States and Canada and through Thames + Hudson outside North America. Clothbound, 9 by 10¾ inches, with 138 pages; 135 color illustrations and priced at $35, it will be available at MoMA Stores and online at www.momastore.org.
Public programs include a symposium on Friday, October 17, at MoMA featuring international scholars who will offer new insights on Kirchner’s defining street scene series. The symposium will include brief, illustrated papers, as well as a discussion moderated by Wye.
The Museum of Modern Art is at 11 West 53rd Street. For information, 212-708-9400 or www.moma.org .
