Modern Art

After the period of isolation imposed by the National Socialist regime, the young generation of German artists eagerly absorbed what they had been denied by Hitler?s dictatorship. Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Beckmann and Emil Nolde as well as a number of Expressionists were the outstanding models of the newly evolving art scene.

A number of different groups played a crucial role in the evolution of the German art scene, like the ?junger westen?, founded in Recklinghausen in 1948, ?Zen 49?, founded in Munich in 1949 or ?Quadriga?, founded in Frankfurt/ Main in 1953. At the beginning of the 1950s, nearly all artists of the informal groups sought liberation from the dogmas of representational panel painting. The turn to ?Art Informel? or abstraction unleashed an explosion of creative energies, prompting the evolution of other styles which greatly enriched the postwar art spectrum in Germany. Movements such as the ?happening? initiated by Wolf Vostell and the ?Fluxus? activities profoundly influenced by him are events in which the audience plays an important role.

Here Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) set standards that dwarfed everything else. Even his early drawings dating from the 1940s as well as his objects, sculptures and ?actions? reveal that he lived out an unorthodox concept of art which opened up new dimensions and meanings to art. With his ?extended concept of art?, his ?actions? with fat and felt he created an instrument that enabled him to propagate ?social sculpture? as the consummation of his philosophy of art.

Whereas artists in Western Germany were able to pick up the thread of existing traditions and draw on all the new artistic currents in Western Europe and the United States, their colleagues in the eastern part of Germany soon found their hands tied by the ?Socialist Realism? prescribed for them by the regime. They were permitted to do nothing more than convey a favorable picture of the socialist society. New trends in this type of painting came largely from the Leipzig Academy of Art. Among ist best-known artists were Werner T?bke (born in 1929) and Berhard Heisig (born in 1925), whose monumental paintings, though still tied to historical or social themes, shed the sterility of the style of the 1950s and 1960s.

Today?s trends in German modern art can best be described by the introduction of some important German artists of today.

J?rg Immendorf (born in 1945), is a kind of modern history painter. In his picture ?Caf? Deutschland?, the storm of history blows the Berlin Wall away. In March 1997, Immendorf was awarded the Mexican ?Marco Prize?, the world?s largest art prize (US$ 250,000), for his work ?Accumulation 2?.

Georg Baselitz (born in 1938), who has won many awards and gained an international reputation, expresses in his upside-down pictures the misery of the human condition.

Markus L?pertz (born in 1941), the current director of the D?sseldorf Academy of Art, projects a ?drunken, rapturous? feeling of life with his ?dithyrambic painting?. L?pertz is one of the fathers of the new (?wild?) representational painting in Germany.

Anselm Kiefer (born in 1945), shapes massive works of art from materials such as dust, flower petals, ashes and roots in his factory-hall studios. He calls his pictures, many of which are inspired by mythology, ?picture bodies? because with his usually untreated materials, he lends sculptured volume to the two-dimensionality of traditional painting.

Before World War II, Berlin was the leading German center of the arts. Berlin now shares this role with Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, D?sseldorf and Frankfurt am Main, even though since German reunification Berlin?s importance increases again. Kassel has a special place on this list. Since 1955, it has hosted the internationally acclaimed 100-day ?Documenta? exhibition of contemporary art, which takes place every five years and drew more than 600,000 visitors in 1997.

Today, very few painters and sculptors can live solely on the proceeds from the sale of their works. They receive government aid, grants, and assistance from private companies with a keen appreciation for the arts. The ?Kunstfonds?, founded in 1980, helps recognized artists finance ambitious projects and offer them oases of artistic activity. Business and industry encourage artistic activity as well. For more than 40 years, for instance, the cultural section of the Federation of German Industries has been awarding prizes to painters and sculptors.

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