Arts Agenda - Breaking traditions

Passion and pathos erupt from a collection of two-dimensional prints currently on exhibit at Oglethorpe University. German Expressionism (1912-1929): Graphic Works From the Lindenau Museum Altenburg, Germany communicates the prescient power of art. Just after World War I, a group of then radical artists led by Conrad Felixmüller broke from known art traditions, projecting assertive color and graphic form on their subjects. Their woodcuts, lithography, engraving and etching explored new ways of looking at the world. Curator Thomas Matuszak has skillfully distilled a significant fragment of German history in his selection of these works on paper.
Felixmüller, whose work is the heart of the exhibition, re-examined his surroundings, reinterpreted the portrait and took a closer look at the coal miner and factory worker. In a cubist portrait from 1917, he reveals the psychological dimensions of poet Walter Rheiner. The juxtaposition of cranberry red, gray and green gives a sinister edge to the scene “In the Cabaret,” from 1921. He eulogized two murdered communist politicians in a lithograph that pictures their divine ascendance from a stark urban scene.
In his “Bunker” and “Wounded Soldier,” Otto Dix rendered the anguish and pain of wartime, while Walter Jacob captured his country’s unsettled psyche in a haunting self-portrait (1920) and an image of wide-eyed “Wandering People” (1921). Georg Kind’s “Erotic Poses” describes a wanton cultural counterpoint. “The Ape,” by Curt Grosspeitsch, is timeless and brilliant social satire. His dark grin at human fears and desires explains the force behind a whole world of destructive history.
-- CATHY BYRD
German Expressionism (1912-1929): Graphic Works from the Lindenau Museum Altenburg, Germany, presented in collaboration by the Goethe Institut Atlanta, the German Consulate and Oglethorpe University, continues through March 25 at Oglethorpe University Museum, 4484 Peachtree Road, 404-364-8555.