On April 19, 2023, visitBerlin CEO Burkhard Kieker and the director of Potsdam’s Museum Barberini, Ortrud Westheider convened at Good Behavior Rooftop in New York City to highlight the upcoming Edvard Munch blockbuster exhibitions, discuss the relevance of Old Masters for modern cities, and present Berlin tourism highlights 2023.
Burkhard Kieker: “Metropolises always have been melting pots and places of cultural innovation. The Old Masters, more precisely their paintings and biographies, are not only a reason to travel to Berlin and see this year’s exhibition highlights…They also remind us that many of the city’s qualities merely have been, re-vived“ after the historical disruptions of the 20th century: a fascinating and welcoming city featuring an inspiring and forward thinking urban society, rich nightlife, green forests and an abundance of culture.”
Ortrud Westheider: “For the social life of a city, the discussion of artistic positions has always been essential: As fuel for debate and exchange, questioning and confirming of one’s self-image, as a source of inspiration and information, and as a basis for social exchange. Art is indispensable for any city that calls itself a metropolis.
Munch’s work has rarely been shown in Germany in such a concentrated, yet multi-layered way as in the upcoming exhibitions in Berlin in Potsdam. As relevant now as in Munch’s time, both shows demonstrate that the artist’s overwhelming emotional expression still has the power to mirror the feelings of a contemporary audience. With the first exhibition devoted entirely to Munch’s landscape depictions, the Museum Barberini is showing a facet of his oeuvre, which has not yet been shown to this extent. The dramatic weather conditions in his paintings take on a special urgency today against the backdrop of the impending climate catastrophe.
We are honored to be able to show artworks from such outstanding collections as Oslo’s Munchmuseet, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, or the Dallas Museum of Art in Potsdam.”
Upcoming Events
Munch in Germany 2023: One artist, two exhibitions features two complementing exhibitions: Edvard Munch. Magic of the North, September 15, 2023 – January 22, 2024, at the Berlinische Galerie tells the story of Norwegian symbolist painter Edvard Munch and Berlin in 80 works, including paintings, prints and photographs. With the radical modernity of his paintings, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) challenged his contemporaries, especially in Berlin, where he widely influenced the local art scene. With about 65 exhibitions between 1892 and 1933, Berlin proved to be one of the most important European hotspots in Munch’s career.
Starry Night, 1922–24
Oil on canvas, 140 × 119 cm
Munchmuseet, Oslo
Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth, November 18, 2023 – April 1, 2024 at the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, is the first exhibition of landscape paintings by Edvard Munch and focuses on his interaction with nature in 90 works. Edvard Munch viewed nature as a cyclically self-renewing power, but also as a reflection of his own inner turmoil. He often projected his pantheistic understanding of nature onto the forests and coasts of Norway. The dramatic weather depicted in his paintings is especially striking considering the current climate crisis.
Other Berlin exhibitions highlights 2023 include Secessions: Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann, June 23 – October 22, 2023 at the Old National Gallery, featuring some 200 paintings, sculptures and graphic works by Secession artists Gustav Klimt, Franz von Stuck and Max Liebermann. The proto-Modernist Secession movement, which emerged in the German speaking world in the late 19th century, was revolutionary in the art world, as it rejected the outmoded structures of government support and exhibition systems.
In 2024 (Apr 19-Aug 4) Berlin celebrates the 250th birthday of Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) with a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the oeuvre of the most prominent painter of the German Romantic movement. Roughly 60 paintings and 50 drawings from Germany and abroad will be on display at Berlin’s Old National Gallery, including several world-famous, iconic works of art.
You can find more Berlin events here.
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