Accompanies an exhibition in Brussels at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts from 5 October 2018 to 27 January 27 2019 -Explores the urban upheavals and politicized artistic milieu of Berlin between 1912 and 1932. Includes work by major artists of the period, including Ten, Rodchenko, Malevich, Kirschner, Grosz, and Hausman. Berlin, a cosmopolitan hotspot and the capital of the first German democracy, was synonymous with artistic pluralism during the interwar years. In Berlin, located at a crossroads between East and West, art was closely linked to an everyday reality that was marked by crisis, social change, and decadence. It was a city where artists often painted a gloomy reality, despite the hope of renewal and a desire for peace after the First World War. Focusing on Berlin as a vibrant cultural metropolis, this book pays special attention to the social changes and utopian ideals of the period between 1912 and 1932: the New Man, the New Woman, the New Objectivity, the New Building, and the New Vision. Through paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and films by artists such as Otto Ten, Raul Hausmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kazimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko, the key creative minds of this striking period come to life.
