Phänomen Großmann trifft auf künstlerische Fotografie

Rescue from Oblivion Rudolf Großmann (18821941) was a renowned painter and graphic artist, and a feared chronicler on account of his rather pointed ­writings. He drew life in the big city in portraits, and café and street scenes in a richly facetted manner; during the 1910s and 1920s, he published texts and illustrations in magazines such as Simplicissimus, and also illustrated books for authors, among them Joachim Ringelnatz and Erich Kästner. Today, Rudolf Großmann is known only among those with a keen interest and expertise in the 1920s. Based on the question of why he has largely been forgotten, the exhibition and book seize the opportunity to initiate a dialogue between his work and recent photographic works by contemporary artists. His paintings and graphic oeuvre from the collection of the Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg will be juxtaposed with ­photographic positions from the collection of the Kunststiftung DZ BANK. It is ­Rudolf Großmann's portrait drawings in particular that bear a certain photographic aspect, and thus can be combined in a meaningful way with the ­various works, for ­instance, by Wolfgang Tillmans, Sven Johne, Nan Goldin, and Gisèle Freund. ­Moreover, Barbara Probst's multi-perspective view or Beate Gütschow's spatial constructions reveal, when they are placed in context with Rudolf Großmann's graphic scenes, that there is a tremendous atmo­­-s­pheric proximity despite the leap in time of more than a hundred years. Rudolf Großmann is characterized by a certain equidistance to the ­popular styles of his time; while this did distin­gu­ish his work and established a closeness to photography, it was not enough though to protect him from ­persecution by the National Socialists; he, too, was considered to be degenerate, and thereafter retreated to his native city of Freiburg.

Exhibition:
Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, 28/10/2022 19/2/2023

Autorentext

Andreas Greulich is an art historian and now galerist in Frankfurt/Main. He has published widely on the German circle of artists who freqeuented the Café du D?me and on Rudolf Groß mann he is a specialist in particular, especially his print graphics. Rudolf Groß mann (1882- 1941) grew up in an artistic milieu. He first studied medicine and philosophy in Munich from 1902 to 1904 and then went to Paris for five years, among others as a student of Lucien Simon. fter his return to Germany, Groß mann lived in Berlin and from then on worked as a graphic artist, among other things with book illustrations and portraits of celebrities, the latter appearing in Simplicissimus, among other publications. In 1928 he became a professor at the Berlin Art Academy. Groß mann was a member of the Berlin Secession and the Deutscher Kü nstlerbund. Christina Leber (born in 1966) studied Catholic theology and education and completed her studies with a doctorate. From 1992 to 1999 Christina Leber was a freelancer for numerous corporate collections, including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Tetra Pak, DG BANK and others. From 1999 to 2001 she was the managing director of the 2nd berlin biennial for contemporary art. Since 2003 she has been working for the DZ BANK art collection, first as curator, since 2011 as its director, now for the Kunststiftung DZ BANK. Christine Litz studied art history, German literature and education in Cologne and Bochum. With a doctorate in art history, she has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and published many texts and catalogues. She has worked at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, on the skulptur projekte mü nster 07, for the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and at dOCUMENTA 13. She has been director of the Museum fü r Neue Kunst, Freiburg since 2012. Dietmar Mezler is an art historian who now works fort he Kunststiftung DZ BANK. After completed his studies at the Kunsthochschule Kassel on the concept of space in Modernist painting he was working for several German cultural institutions including for Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Frankfurter Kunstverein, and SALT Istanbul. Isabel Herda studied European Art History and Medieval and Modern History at the University of Heidelberg. She has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and published many catalogues and texts. She has been curator at the Museum fü r Neue Kunst, Freiburg since 2001, where she is in charge of the Graphic Collection. She has curated numerous exhibitions and accompanying catalogues on modern and contemporary art. Lisa Bauer-Zhao is an art historian and received her PhD in the philosphy of of culture on the understanding of " modernity" in Taiwanese art discourse. She has been curator at the Museum fü r Neue Kunst Freiburg since 2018.

Klappentext

Dem Vergessen entreißenRudolf Großmann (1882-1941) war ein renommierter Maler und Grafiker und seiner spitzen Feder wegen auch ein gefürchteter Chronist. In Porträts und Café- und Straßenszenen zeichnete er sehr facettenreich das Leben in der Großstadt nach, in Zeitschriften wie etwa dem Simplicissimus veröffent­lichte er in den 1910er und -20er Jahren Texte und Illustra­tionen; zudem illustrierte er Bücher für Autoren wie Joachim Ringelnatz und Erich Kästner. Heute ist Rudolf Großmann nur noch Interes­sierten und Spezialisten für die 1920er Jahre ein Begriff. Vor dem Hintergrund der Frage, warum er weitest­gehend in Vergessenheit geraten ist, stellen Ausstellung und Buch sein Werk mit Fotoarbeiten zeitgenös­sischer KünstlerInnen gegenüber. Seine grafischen und malerischen Arbeiten aus der Sammlung des Museums für Neue Kunst Freiburg werden mit den fotografischen Positionen aus der Sammlung der Kunststiftung DZ BANK kombiniert. Dabei erweisen sich vor allem Rudolf Großmanns Porträtzeichnungen, denen ein fotografischer Blick zu eigen ist, als sinnvolle Pendants der Werke etwa von Wolfgang Tillmans, Sven Johne, Nan Goldin oder Gisèle Freund. Der multiperspek­ti­vische Blick von Barbara Probst oder die Raumkonstruktionen von Beate Gütschow zeigen überdies, wenn sie auf Rudolf Großmanns zeichnerische Szenen treffen, dass trotz des zeit­lichen Sprungs von über 100 Jahren ­eine gewaltige ­atmosphärische Nähe besteht. ­Rudolf Großmann besaß eine gewisse Äquidistanz zu den bekannten Stilen seiner Zeit, was sein Werk unvergleichlich macht und zugleich eine Nähe zur Fotografie herstellt. Das aber konnte auch ihn nicht vor der Verfolgung durch den Nationalsozialismus schützen, sodass auch seine Kunst als entartet gebrandmarkt wurde und er sich in seinem Geburtsort Freiburg zunehmend zurückzog.

Ausstellung: Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, 28/10/2022 - 19/2/2023