David von Becker
Thursday Art Special
Every Thu, 5 PM
Each Thursday the Museum Barberini presents special lectures (in German) on a particular aspect of the Hasso Plattner Collection or the current exhibition. Museum curators, conservators, and guides speak about their various disciplines and areas of work, offering a glimpse behind the scenes and offering new perspectives on the works of art.
All lectures are offered also online on Wednesdays, see Online Live Talk
Costs
€ 5 plus admission
Venue
Auditorium
Runtime
50 minutes
Wednesday, June 29, 2022 / Thursday, June 30, 2022
From Kandinsky to Pollock: A History of Nonrepresentational Art
Andreas Knüppel, art historian
Shortly after 1900, several painters and sculptors distanced themselves from the depiction of the real world and broke with the basic principles and historical traditions of Western art. While the first abstract paintings were created in the early twentieth century, and Vasily Kandinsky made an important theoretical contribution with his treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art, art historians cannot agree on who created the first abstract painting. Abstraction embraces many different artistic movements, all of which share the basic principle that painting should be experimental and motivated by the painting process, with the individual freedom of the artist at its core. In his lecture, Andreas Knüppel presents several of the most important movements of nonrepresentational painting, from the beginnings of abstraction to postwar art in the United States and Western Europe, as is shown in the current exhibition.
Wednesday, July 6, 2022 / Thursday, July 7, 2022
Animated Visual Spaces: On Art Informel in Western Europe
Andrea Schmidt, art historian
While painters in the United States were engaging in abstract painting, European artists of Art Informel such as Wols, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Judit Riegl were developing their own versions of this new form of art on both sides of the Atlantic. In a postwar world traumatized by violence and the terror of fascism, gestural painting became a way of expressing the existential search for meaning by individuals who were left to their own devices. Andrea Schmidt presents the proponents of postwar abstraction in Western Europe, showing how Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism mutually influenced each other and tells how the documenta in Kassel—and with it West Germany—became a center of abstract art in Europe in the early 1950s. Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s large-format animated visual spaces, his Disc and Eye paintings, enjoyed particular popularity at the time.
Wednesday, July 13, 2022 / Thursday, July 14, 2022
Helen Frankenthaler and Fluid Poetry
Andrea Schmidt, art historian
American painter Helen Frankenthaler, to whom an entire room in the exhibition is dedicated along with works by Morris Louis, developed her own method of Action Painting in the circle of the New York School. Inspired by the style that had been developed by Jackson Pollock, she poured paint that had been thinned with turpentine directly onto unprimed canvas to create a shaped “stain” that was absorbed by the material, creating “soak-stain” pictures whose transparent quality is reminiscent of watercolors. The paint and canvas seem to merge, creating flowing, atmospheric effects and inviting viewers to lose themselves while contemplating the visual spaces.
Tickets July 14
Wednesday, July 20, 2022 / Thursday, July 21, 2022
Gustave Caillebotte: Painter and Patron, Collector and Sailor
Gesine Harms, art historian
The painter Gustave Caillebotte reinterpreted Impressionism in an original way, both formally and in terms of content: thus, his breathtaking perspectives and unusual picture details led to a new way of seeing in art. His repertoire of motifs is as diverse as the artist himself: In addition to modern views of Paris, the passionate sailor and gardener painted boats on the Seine, regattas off the Norman coast, and garden idylls.
Wednesday, August 3 2022 / Thursday, August 4 2022
Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner: One Artist Couple, Two Independent Artist Personalities
Gesine Harms, art historian
Jackson Pollock, one of the most outstanding American painters of the twentieth century, became the protagonist of the Abstract Expressionists with his large-format works of Action Painting. When he and the painter Lee Krasner became a couple, she had already made her mark on the New York art scene. While her position was often subordinated in the reception of Abstract Expressionism, she was clearly one of the independent pioneers of the movement. This lecture examines the careers of both artists, looking at how they influenced and supported each other as a couple. It also surveys how Krasner liberated herself following Pollock’s early death and created a complex body of abstract painting that is in a class of its own.
Wednesday, August 10, 2022 / Thursday, August 11, 2022
Animated Visual Spaces: On Art Informel in Western Europe
Andrea Schmidt, art historian
While painters in the United States were engaging in abstract painting, European artists of Art Informel such as Wols, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Judit Riegl were developing their own versions of this new form of art on both sides of the Atlantic. In a postwar world traumatized by violence and the terror of fascism, gestural painting became a way of expressing the existential search for meaning by individuals who were left to their own devices. Andrea Schmidt presents the proponents of postwar abstraction in Western Europe, showing how Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism mutually influenced each other and tells how the documenta in Kassel—and with it West Germany—became a center of abstract art in Europe in the early 1950s. Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s large-format animated visual spaces, his Disc and Eye paintings, enjoyed particular popularity at the time.
Wednesday, August 17, 2022 / Thursday, August 18, 2022
Magical Imagery: The Surrealists and the New Self-Perception of Women
Dr. Ira Oppermann, art historian
The alignment of the Abstract Expressionists with European Surrealism was significant. The American artists were inspired by the Surrealists’ interest in the subconscious and irrational, their emphasis on expression and emotion, and the importance of chance in their art.
While Surrealism in Paris around 1920 was dominated by male artists, many women artists joined the group around André Breton in the 1930s. Similar to Breton, they valued freedom of expression, spiritual and alchemistic subject matter, and the investigation of the new findings of psychoanalysis.
In her lecture, Ira Oppermann presents the artists Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varos and examines the role that the new self-perception of women played in their art. Although women were often presented as passive muses by their male painter colleagues, the women Surrealists created realms in which women took control as magicians, sorceresses, and seductresses.
Wednesday, August 24, 2022 / Thursday, August 25, 2022
Berthe Morisot – Suggestive brushstroke
Berthe Morisot, in addition to being one of the outstanding artist personalities of the nineteenth century, was one of the few women in the Impressionist circle. Employing a free, long brushstroke, the French artist captured motifs in a way that is more suggestive than descriptive. As a figurative painter, Morisot depicted women getting dressed and at work, inside, outside, and at the window. Her favorite models—her sister Edma and, later, her daughter, Julie—give viewers access to the private world of this exceptional artist. In her landscape pictures Morisot focused on park scenes, gardens, and maritime depictions. In this lecture, Ira Oppermann will present the artistic development of the famous Impressionist and compare her work with paintings by fellow artists Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 / Thursday, September 1, 2022
Helen Frankenthaler and Fluid Poetry
Andrea Schmidt, art historian
American painter Helen Frankenthaler, to whom an entire room in the exhibition is dedicated along with works by Morris Louis, developed her own method of Action Painting in the circle of the New York School. Inspired by the style that had been developed by Jackson Pollock, she poured paint that had been thinned with turpentine directly onto unprimed canvas to create a shaped “stain” that was absorbed by the material, creating “soak-stain” pictures whose transparent quality is reminiscent of watercolors. The paint and canvas seem to merge, creating flowing, atmospheric effects and inviting viewers to lose themselves while contemplating the visual spaces.
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 / Thursday, September 8, 2022
From Kandinsky to Pollock: A History of Nonrepresentational Art
Andreas Knüppel, art historian
Shortly after 1900, several painters and sculptors distanced themselves from the depiction of the real world and broke with the basic principles and historical traditions of Western art. While the first abstract paintings were created in the early twentieth century, and Vasily Kandinsky made an important theoretical contribution with his treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art, art historians cannot agree on who created the first abstract painting. Abstraction embraces many different artistic movements, all of which share the basic principle that painting should be experimental and motivated by the painting process, with the individual freedom of the artist at its core. In his lecture, Andreas Knüppel presents several of the most important movements of nonrepresentational painting, from the beginnings of abstraction to postwar art in the United States and Western Europe, as is shown in the current exhibition.
Wednesday, September 14, 2022 / Thursday, September 15, 2022
Gustave Caillebotte: Painter and Patron, Collector and Sailor
Gesine Harms, art historian
The painter Gustave Caillebotte reinterpreted Impressionism in an original way, both formally and in terms of content: thus, his breathtaking perspectives and unusual picture details led to a new way of seeing in art. His repertoire of motifs is as diverse as the artist himself: In addition to modern views of Paris, the passionate sailor and gardener painted boats on the Seine, regattas off the Norman coast, and garden idylls.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022 / Thursday, September 22, 2022
Magical Imagery: The Surrealists and the New Self-Perception of Women
Dr. Ira Oppermann, art historian
The alignment of the Abstract Expressionists with European Surrealism was significant. The American artists were inspired by the Surrealists’ interest in the subconscious and irrational, their emphasis on expression and emotion, and the importance of chance in their art.
While Surrealism in Paris around 1920 was dominated by male artists, many women artists joined the group around André Breton in the 1930s. Similar to Breton, they valued freedom of expression, spiritual and alchemistic subject matter, and the investigation of the new findings of psychoanalysis.
In her lecture, Ira Oppermann presents the artists Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varos and examines the role that the new self-perception of women played in their art. Although women were often presented as passive muses by their male painter colleagues, the women Surrealists created realms in which women took control as magicians, sorceresses, and seductresses.
Tickets September 22
Lectures for further dates will be announced soon.
Every Thursday at 5 PM