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Annual Art Exhibition in Berlin (1893–1969) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Große Berliner Kunstausstellung (Great Berlin Art Exhibition), abbreviated GroBeKa or GBK, was an annual art exhibition that existed from 1893 to 1969 with intermittent breaks. In 1917 and 1918, during World War I, it was not held in Berlin but in Düsseldorf. In 1919 and 1920, it operated under the name Kunstausstellung Berlin. From 1970 to 1995, the Freie Berliner Kunstausstellung (Free Berlin Art Exhibition) was held annually in its place.
Until the 1890s, with the exception of the International Art Exhibition of 1891,[1][2] for more than a hundred years the Fine Arts Section of the Royal Academy of Arts organised and ran the Academic Art Exhibitions. The first Great Berlin Art Exhibition took place in 1893 on the basis of the statutes of a reorganisation of its internal relations, which was approved by Kaiser Wilhelm II. From then on, the entirety of the Berlin artistic community was to take over the art exhibition, represented by the Cooperative of the Members of the Royal Academy of Arts (Genossenschaft der Mitglieder der Königlichen Akademie der Künste) and the Berlin Artist's Association (Verein Berliner Künstler). The Düsseldorf artists' association was also granted a share in the management of the exhibition.[3] On 14 May 1893, the Prussian Minister of Culture Robert Bosse opened the first Great Berlin Art Exhibition.[4] This and subsequent exhibitions were held in the Glass Palace, the exhibition building of the State Exhibition Park at Lehrter Bahnhof.
In 1896, to celebrate the bicentenary of the Royal Academy of Arts, the International Art Exhibition and the Berlin Trade Exhibition were held in the exhibition building, the adjacent building and the State Exhibition Park instead of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition.
It is disputed whether in 1898, the jury of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition had rejected the landscape painting Grunewaldsee by the painter Walter Leistikow and whether this had been, among other things, the reason for the founding of the Berlin Secession. In order to raise the long-lamented average standard of this exhibition, the jury had rejected around 1500 works, i.e. one-third of the works submitted. Walter Leistikow's pictures, however, were not affected by this. All of his submitted paintings were accepted.[5][6]
At the beginning of May 1898, 65 artists founded the Berlin Secession,[7] as a consequence of current and earlier discord with the Verein Berliner Künstler.[8] For the most part, the members did not take part in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition for a while from 1899 onwards and showed their works in a building in Kantstraße in secession-owned exhibitions.
The artist and printmaker Käthe Kollwitz was nominated for a gold medal by the jury of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition for her cycle A Weavers' Revolt, but Kaiser Wilhelm II probably considered the works too socially critical, and he prevented the medal from being awarded in 1898.[9] In 1900, 16 of the 24[10] works by the sculptor and painter Gustav Eberlein on display, fell victim to censorship and were removed from the exhibition by "the highest instruction", including the works Adam and Eve at the End of Life,[11] The Spirit of Bismarck, and Workers (also Sack Bearers).
In 1905, the Berlin Association of Artists (Werkring) and the Association for House and Apartment Art (Vereinigung für Haus und Wohnungskunst) were represented in the exhibition, and in 1908 the Dresden artists' group Die Elbier. In 1912, the opening speech was given by Max Schlichting, who used the situation to draw attention to artistic freedom: "In contrast to private exhibitions, an exhibition supported by the state has the obligation to promote all artistic endeavors equally, and its assistance is open to anyone who wishes to call upon it for his or her person.[12]
In 1913, on the occasion of the Emperor's jubilee, the exhibition entitled Große Berliner Kunstausstellung zum Regierungsjubiläum Seiner Majestät des Kaisers (Great Berlin Art Exhibition on the Anniversary of the Reign of His Majesty the Emperor) was held. The wish to include the Berlin Secession in this Great Berlin Art Exhibition, with its own jury and halls, was not fulfilled. The Berlin Secession declined the invitation.[13]
As the exhibition building of the Landesausstellungspark was used for military purposes due to the First World War, the Great Berlin Art Exhibition took place in 1915 in the exhibition building at the Palais Arnim of the Royal Academy of Arts on Pariser Platz with a smaller exhibition area. In order to be able to show at least about 600 works, the exhibition was divided into two stages. 300 works were on display during the first half of the exhibition period and 300 more during the second half.[14][15]
The exhibition in 1916, again in the Glaspalast, was almost entirely dominated by the war. There were three categories: The War Pictures Exhibition, the Portrait Gallery: "Great Men from Great Times" and the General Art Exhibition, whereby in the latter, which was divided into five groups, the Association of German illustrators (Verband Deutscher Illustratoren) also had "Political Caricature and War Humour" as its leading theme. On 15 September, Herwarth Walden criticised this exhibition in his article Der Vergessene Kern (The Forgotten Core) in the journal Der Sturm, which he edited.[16]
On 1917 as well as in 1918, the Great Berlin Art Exhibition was moved to the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf. Artists of the Berlin Secession and artists of the Free Secession were also included. In 1917, new acquisitions from the municipal art collections in Düsseldorf were also exhibited and in 1918, on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the painter and professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Eduard von Gebhardt, his works from collections and private collections were exhibited. Konrad Haenisch and Max Schlichting worked on a reform of the exhibition in 1918.[17]
In 1919, at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, the exhibition was held under the name Kunstausstellung Berlin in the newly renovated Glaspalast (Glaspalast) in the Landesausstellungpark, as it was in 1920, but in 1921 it was again called the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung. The exhibition was now sponsored by the government of the new republic and had been reorganised. The Association of Berlin Artists (Verein Berliner Künstler), Berliner Secession, Freie Secession and the Novembergruppe were represented, but separately, each with its own jury and its own rooms.[18]
On 14 May 1921, Reich President Friedrich Ebert opened the Great Berlin Art Exhibition.[19] The Berlin Secession was not represented at this exhibition.[20] In September 1922, the lithograph Sentimental Sailor and the watercolour Patriotic Travelling Theatre by the artist Georg Scholz were declared "lewd" in the November Group section and confiscated.[21] The following year, Ebert and Hans Baluschek spoke at the opening event.
In 1927, the exhibition was run for the first time by the Kartell der vereinigten Verbände Bildender Künstler Berlin. The Cartel had been founded to do justice to the interests of all artists. The exhibition commission was composed of one representative each from various groups and associations, namely the Allgemeine deutsche Kunstgenossenschaft, Ortsverein Berlin (General German Art Cooperative, Berlin chapter), the architects' association Der Ring, the Berlin Secession, the international association of expressionists, futurists, cubists and constructivists Die Abstrakten, the Freie Vereinigung der Graphiker zu Berlin (Association of Graphics Artists of Berlin), the Künstlervereinigung Berliner Bildhauer (Artists' Association of Berlin Sculptors), the November Group, the Verein Berliner Künstler, the Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen (Association of Berlin Women Artists) and the Frauen-Kunstverband (Women's Art Association). There was also a representative for the artists who did not belong to any of the cartel's associations.[22] The 1927 exhibition included a special exhibition of paintings by Kazimir Malevich. Since Malevich had to return to the Soviet Union early, he gave the pictures to Hugo Häring for safekeeping in his function as treasurer of the exhibition.[23] On the one hand, Malevich hoped for further sales, on the other for a return to Berlin. The pictures embarked on an "odyssey" and never returned to Russia. Of the 73 paintings exhibited, 18 works are now considered lost.
On 12 July 1928, the "Führer" of the Nazi Party and former art painter Adolf Hitler visited the exhibition, where Expressionist, Futurist, Cubist, Constructivist and New Objectivity works were shown,[24] among others, works that ran counter to his understanding of art, therefore did not correspond to the Nazi ideal of German art and were later branded as Degenerate Art when the Nazi Party seized power in 1933.
Due to the dilapidation of the Glass Palace in the Exhibition Park, Bellevue Palace served as the exhibition venue from 1929.[25] The director of the exhibition from then on was Hans Baluschek.
In 1930, most of the works submitted by the Dadaist and painter of Berlin nightlife Christian Schad were rejected. A year later, the painting § 218 by Alice Lex-Nerlinger,[26] the wife of Oskar Nerlinger, was confiscated by the police during the exhibition.[27] The controversial painting Selig sind die geistig Armen by Horst Strempel was removed from the exhibition in 1932.
Already in the early days of National Socialism, the Nazis removed Hans Baluschek from his post as exhibition director in 1933 as a so-called "Marxist artist" and later banned him from working and exhibiting.[28] They ostracised his works, classing them as "degenerate". However, between 1933 and 1934, his paintings were still exhibited at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. The opening speech was given by the Prussian Minister of Culture Bernhard Rust.[29] Excluded from the board of the Association of Berlin Women Artists, prominent Jewish artist Harriet von Rathlef withdrew her works from the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in Bellevue Palace as a consequence of the increasing anti-Semitic riots and the art policy of the Nazis.[30] The exhibition for the year 1934 was presented in the exhibition rooms of the Prussian Academy of Arts, and works by Gustav Wunderwald were rejected.
In 1936, Georg Netzband was banned from exhibiting because of "political unreliability".[citation needed]
In 1940, During the Second World War, the exhibition was shown in the new exhibition hall of the Haus der Kunst at Hardenbergstraße 21-23. The previous Haus der Kunst at Königsplatz 4 had been demolished.[citation needed]
In 1942, the exhibition was held in the Nationalgalerie. For the propagandistic documentary film Sommersonntag in Berlin of 1942, produced by the Die Deutsche Wochenschau and lasting about thirteen minutes, about thirty seconds of footage were shot in and in front of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 35mm film format.[31] After about two minutes of the film, the shots of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition follow. The sculpture shown in close-up in it is the Water Bearer by Walter Hauschild.
On 25 May 1956, the first Great Berlin Art Exhibition since the war, was opened in the exhibition halls at the Berlin Radio Tower. The exhibition was organised by the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler Berlin (Professional Association of Visual Artists Berlin). The artist, colour designer, the avant-garde author of children's books, Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp was from then on jointly responsible for the design of the exhibitions. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Waldemar Rösler's death, works by him were shown.
In 1958, the then Mayor of West Berlin Willy Brandt and Federal President Theodor Heuss were present at the opening.[32] In 1961, Paul Ohnsorge was awarded the Grand Prize of the Berlin Art Exhibition for his complete works by Willy Brandt in the presence of former Federal President Theodor Heuss.
The last Great Berlin Art Exhibition took place in 1969.
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