German Expressionism

In gen­er­al, the col­or tones of more than 42 dif­fer­ent col­ors, which were select­ed togeth­er with the cura­tor in an inten­sive coor­di­na­tion process, are pre­cise­ly coor­di­nat­ed with each work. The sub­tle col­or changes suc­ceed in cre­at­ing atmos­pheres that give each room, each group of works, and ulti­mate­ly each work its own appear­ance, but also an inter­nal con­text to all the works as a whole. The col­ors and the mor­phol­o­gy of the archi­tec­ture sup­port the exhi­bi­tion nar­ra­tive, because they are asso­cia­tive and nar­ra­tive in all their abstrac­tion. We would like to thank the great con­struc­tion team for their won­der­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion in this metic­u­lous­ly planned, mul­ti­fac­eted spa­tial col­or play.

The first room of the exhi­bi­tion — square and for­mal — still kept entire­ly in the red-brown of the turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry salons, is a strate­gic room that puts the man­i­festo at the cen­ter and focus­es on the con­cep­tu­al start­ing point. The pic­tures then ​“speak” in a field of paint­ing. The largest room in the exhi­bi­tion brings togeth­er the pic­tures from the first phase. Cross-shaped wall dis­plays jux­ta­pose pic­tures; the arrange­ment opens up views, con­nec­tions become clear, and a large pic­ture of lib­er­a­tion comes togeth­er. The rear part of the room sug­gests move­ment and the exit from the stu­dios into nature through the rota­tion of the cross­es in the ceil­ing grid. Vis­i­tors encounter peo­ple in motion; naked bod­ies and the feel­ing of airy fresh­ness is enhanced by the sub­tle col­ors in this room. After the red­dish brown, light and airy tones in the spec­trum of sand, blue, and mauve dom­i­nate here.

After the cheer­ful time out­doors and the first exper­i­ment, the painters of the ​“Brücke” go to the big city of Berlin. The wall pan­els in this room become high­er, they are in ten­sion with each oth­er and sug­gest both the phys­i­cal­i­ty of the big city and the urban over­load that was felt in the 1920s (Simmel/​Benjamin). The light, fresh col­ors in this room become dark­er, stronger, dirt­i­er and deep­er: they solid­i­fy. In Berlin, the group breaks up, the indi­vid­ual mem­bers who pre­vi­ous­ly trav­eled, exhib­it­ed and paint­ed togeth­er indi­vid­u­al­ize and go their own ways.

The last room is ded­i­cat­ed to recep­tion. A kind of sub­tle echo is cre­at­ed with shad­ed green tones. Doc­u­ments are used to trace the suc­cess sto­ries, life paths and devel­op­ments of the active mem­bers of the group – the painters and the pas­sive mem­bers – the sponsors.