CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH. Artwork for a New Age

The Hamburger Kunsthalle will mark the 250th anniversary of the delivery of Caspar David Friedrich (1774 Greifswald–1840 Dresden) with a celebratory exhibition. CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH. Artwork for a New Age, to run from 15 December 2023 till 1 April 2024, would be the greatest evaluation of labor by the distinctive Romantic painter for a few years. It centres on a themed retrospective with greater than 60 work, amongst them many main iconic works, and about 100 drawings. Additionally featured are chosen works by Friedrich’s colleagues, notably Carl Blechen, Carl Gustav Carus, Johan Christian Dahl, August Heinrich and Georg Friedrich Kersting. The connection between individuals and nature, which discovered novel expression in Friedrich’s landscapes, is a key thematic strand. His remedy of this topic was a necessary issue, in the course of the first third of the nineteenth century, in the direction of reworking panorama portray into »artwork for a brand new age«. The deep fascination unleashed by these works has been enduring they usually lend themselves with nice facility to problems with now-time, as demonstrated by a second, separate part of the exhibition that brings collectively responses to Friedrich in modern artwork. In contributions starting from video and images to installations, some 20 artists working throughout quite a lot of genres and media, each right here in Germany and overseas, got down to discover the Romantic period, its perspective to nature, and the artwork of Caspar David Friedrich. The members embrace Elina Brotherus, Julian Charrière, David Claerbout, Olafur Eliasson, Alex Grein, Hiroyuki Masuyama, Mariele Neudecker, Ulrike Rosenbach, Susan Schuppli, Santeri Tuori and Kehinde Wiley.

Excellent and intensely uncommon loans of work by Friedrich, amongst them Chalk Cliffs on Rügen (1818), The Monk by the Sea (1808–10) and Two Males Considering the Moon (1819/20), will likely be on present alongside works from the holdings of the Hamburger Kunsthalle reminiscent of Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (c.1817) and The Sea of Ice (1823/24). These works are Romantic icons.

Friedrich utilized his painterly abilities to probing the power of a panorama to specific questions of his time, to tapping the potential related to representations of nature and to discovering methods to speak with the viewer. His output of drawings was likewise prolific and the exhibition devotes particular consideration to those. Spending time in a pure outside surroundings as a way to produce artwork was a particular attribute of Romantic observe and important to Friedrich’s œuvre.

The distinctive environment that speaks to us from Friedrich’s works with their highly effective motifs and compositions has impressed many artists to enter right into a dialogue with their Romantic colleague, particularly given the present relevance of ecological points. The stress between the gradual destruction of the surroundings and a craving for »untouched nature« has been an unbroken power from the Romantic age all the way down to our personal occasions. In Friedrich’s day, nevertheless, the Romantic notion of nature carried nationwide connotations, whereas today’s artists strategy the pure world and local weather change from a worldwide perspective. On this spirit, the exhibition additionally embraces current work dedicated to the darker sides and absences in Romantic artwork and later reactions to it. Colonialism and its affect on individuals and pure assets are as a lot a theme right here because the Western, hegemonial idea of nature and its expressions in artwork. The reveals embrace imposing variations of Friedrich by the American artist Kehinde Wiley (*1977), which replicate critically on an artwork canon knowledgeable by white Western enter.

The exhibition on the Hamburger Kunsthalle is the prelude to the Caspar David Friedrich Pageant. To rejoice the anniversary yr, the Alte Nationalgalerie/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden will every comply with swimsuit with reveals on their very own themes. The three museums boast the world’s greatest collections of works by Friedrich. A reciprocal move of considerable loans will allow unprecedented shows on completely different elements of his œuvre. These exhibitions to mark the 250th anniversary of Caspar David Friedrich’s delivery benefit from the patronage of Germany’s president Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

To enrich the Pageant, the Hamburger Kunsthalle has teamed up with the Alte Nationalgalerie/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden to arrange a Internet portal with curated multi-media content material round Friedrich’s artwork as a part of a mission known as Datenraum Kultur. That is considered one of a number of flagship initiatives arrange below the Federal authorities’s Digital Technique to facilitate digital networking between cultural institutions and to advertise the unbiased change of arts-related information. Its growth has been entrusted to the Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften e.V. (acatech), the Ministry of Tradition and Media within the Free and Hanseatic Metropolis of Hamburg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Utilized Info Know-how (FIT).

Curator and mission supervisor: Dr. Markus Bertsch, Head of the nineteenth Century Assortment

Exterior curator: Prof. Johannes Grave, Friedrich-Schiller-College Jena

Curatorial assistant: Ruth Stamm

Coordinator for the Caspar David Friedrich mission and Internet portal: Petra Bassen

Datenraum Kultur / Internet portal Caspar David Friedrich: Christian Auffarth, Clara Blomeyer, Dr. Katharina Hoins

The exhibition has been organised in partnership with: Friedrich-Schiller-College Jena

Principal exhibition sponsors: Hapag-Lloyd, Hapag-Lloyd Basis

Exhibition sponsor: Else Schnabel

The mission Datenraum Kultur is funded by the Federal Authorities Commissioner for Tradition and the Media.

Haspa-Galerie: The Hamburger Sparkasse has been dedicated for a few years to supporting the Hamburger Kunsthalle. As a token of gratitude for this generosity, the second higher stage of the Gallery for Modern Artwork, the place the modern responses to Friedrich will likely be on present, has been named the »Haspa-Galerie«.

Cultural companions: NDR Kultur, Ministry of Tradition and Media within the Free and Hanseatic Metropolis of Hamburg

Media companion: Hamburger Abendblatt