ART CITIES:Liverpool-Portraying a Nation Germany 1919-1933
The “Golden ‘20s” of the Weimar Republic have passed into myth, but the works of Otto Dix and August Sander offer a rather different set of images. Dix’s often grotesque and deliberately shocking work presents an alternative view of the world, one documenting the savage effects of war and prostitution and in which the wealthy and influential queued up to be subject to his satirical caricatures. By contrast, Sander’s photographic portraits of ordinary Germans can seem mundane, but that contrast offers a clue to their power. The objectivity of the Sander’s documentation of the social reality of Germany between the two World Wars, inviting he viewer to wonder what became of that overwhelming gallery of ordinary faces.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Tate Archive
The exhibition “Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919–1933” brings together two artists whose works document the glamour and misery of the Weimar Republic, a time of radical extremes and political and economic upheaval. The exhibition presents Otto Dix and August Sander as a pair for the first time, reflects a pivotal point in Germany’s history, as it introduced democratic rule in the aftermath of the World WarI. The period was one of experimentation and innovation across the visual arts, during which both artists were concerned with representing the extremes of society, from the flourishing cabaret culture to intense poverty and civilian rebellions. “Portraying a Nation” unites two complementary exhibitions. “Otto Dix: The Evil Eye” explores Dix’s harshly realistic depictions of German society and the brutality of war, while “ARTIST ROOMS: August Sander” presents photographs from Sander’s best known series “People of the Twentieth Century”, from the ARTIST ROOMS Collection of International Modern and Contemporary Art. “Otto Dix: The Evil Eye” focusses on the evolution of Dix’s work during his years in Düsseldorf, from 1922 to 1925, when he became one of the foremost New Objectivity painters, a movement exploring a new style of artistic representation following the First World War. Dix’s paintings are vitriolic reflections on German society, commenting on the country’s stark divisions. His work represents the people who made up these contradictions in society with highlights including “Portrait of the Photographer Hugo Erfurth with Dog” (1923), “Self-Portrait with Easel” (1926), as well as a large group of lesser known watercolours. Dix’s “The War” 1924 will also form a key element of the exhibition, a series of 50 etchings made as a reaction to and representation of the profound effect of his personal experiences of fighting in the World War I. August Sander’s photographs also observe a cross-section of society to present a collective portrait of a nation. Sander commenced his major photographic project “People of the Twentieth Century” in 1910, an ambitious task that occupied him until the ‘50s. The project resulted in more than 600 images in which people were categorised into what he described as “Types”, including artists, musicians, circus workers, farmers and, in the late 1930s, images of Nazi officers. More than 140 photographs are displayed to create a large-scale timeline of Weimar Germany, placing individual subjects against a backdrop of the era’s tumultuous cultural and political history.
Info: Curators: Dr. Susanne Meyer-Büser, Francesco Manacorda, and Lauren Barnes (Otto Dix: The Evil Eye) & Francesco Manacorda and Lauren Barnes (ARTIST ROOMS: August Sander), Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, Liverpool Waterfront, Liverpool, Duration: 23/-15/10/17, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-17:50, www.tate.org.uk
