We opened our anniversary year for the 30th anniversary of the Kunstmuseum Ahlen with highlights from our collection on classical modernism. The exhibition presented more than 120 works from the turn of the century to the 1930s, taking a fresh look at them against the backdrop of current discussions about “modernism” and exploring artistic, social and political developments at the time.
Prominent names such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Emil Nolde and Walter Ophey stood alongside lesser-known names such as Will Wieger and Elfriede Thum. Together, their paintings, drawings and prints illustrated the upheavals of the early 20th century. Within the genres of landscape, still life and figuration, artists experimented intensively with light and color, space and surface, natural models and abstraction.
Contemporary artists from the collection showed expansive interventions: Swiss artist Susanne Lyner (*1949) presented a series of square works created by throwing paint onto canvas in the context of color-intensive landscape paintings of classical modernism. The Ukrainian artist Alyosha (*1974) created a delicate installation that encountered modernist tree and forest scenes. A cabinet exhibition provided an exciting glimpse behind the scenes of museum collection care.
With works by:
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann | Willi Baumeister | Peter August Böckstiegel | Heinrich Campendonk | Lyonel Feininger | Leo Gestel | Erich Heckel | Curt Herrmann | Adolf Hölzel | Alexander Kanoldt | Oskar Kokoschka | Helmuth Macke | Marie von Malachowski-Nauen | Heinrich Nauen | Emil Nolde | Walter Ophey | Max Pechstein | Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Christian Rohlfs | Hermann Stenner | William Straube | Elfriede Thum | Wilhelm Wieger | u.v.m.
