August Macke, Märchenerzähler, 1912, 38,5 x 42 cm, Oil on wood and pasteboard, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden

Anselm Kiefer, Böhmen liegt am Meer, 1995, 190 x 559 cm, Oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac on burlap, © Anselm Kiefer, 2008, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Pfortensteg Chemnitz, 1910, 89 x 80 cm, Oil on canvas,© Dr. Wolfgang & Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Straße mit Passanten bei Nachtbeleuchtung, 1926/27, 87 x 68 cm, Oil on canvas, © Dr. Wolfgang & Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.

Susanne Kühn, Melanie hinter dem Vorhang, 2005, 210 x 170 cm, Pigment, dispersion on canvas. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008.

Max Beckmann, Neubau, 1928, 147 x 64 cm, Oil on canvas, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.

Museum Frieder Burda
Lichtentaler Allee 8 b
Baden-Baden
+49 (0) 72 21 / 3 98 98-0
Böhmen liegt am Meer
May 8-June 22, 2008

Core of the exhibition Böhmen liegt am Meer is the Frieder Burda collection with approximately 40 exhibited works. The exhibition comprises German expressionist artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke and Alexej von Jawlensky, who were laying the base for the Frieder Burda collection, as well as works by Max Beckmann, arranged in juxtaposition to some major late Picassos. Anselm Kiefer’s large-scale painting Böhmen liegt am Meer, which lent its name to the exhibition, is painted formally in the tradition of German expressionism, although it can also be regarded as a kind of link connecting expressionism with the group of works by the younger generation of painters, such as David Schnell, Susanne Kühn and Corinne Wasmuth, who, in various interpretations, explore the temporary and structural experiences of space.

German expressionism provides a starting point for various facets of art history in the 20th and 21st century. Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and a poem by Ingeborg Bachmann inspired Kiefer to his confusing title Böhmen liegt am Meer. He uses a variety of artistic means to interpret the notion of Utopia, which, according to Kiefer, is only achievable in art. In the figurative sense, this may also be true for the collection itself, where a multitude of artists and works discover common ground beyond all differences of time and type. Thus, Anselm Kiefer’s large-scale work from 1995 can be regarded as a symbol for painting that has its roots both in expressionism and informal or gesture abstraction, as art that moves between figuration and abstraction.

Henri Laurens, La grande maternité, 1932, 50 x 48 x 137 cm, Bronze, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.

Max Beckmann, Blick aus dem Fenster in Baden-Baden, 1936, 65 x 95 cm, Oil on canvas, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008, Photo: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.