Melancholy

Aesthetics of transience and emptiness – a collection exhibition

07/09/—17/11/24

 

Falko Behrendt, Manfred Butzmann, Christa Böhme, Lothar Böhme, Manfred Böttcher, Fritz Cremer, Albert Ebert, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, Lea Grundig, Eberhard Göschel, Gussy Hippold-Ahnert, Eugen Hoffmann, Manfred Kastner, Klaus Kehrwald, Konrad Knebel, Herbert Kunze, Claudia Kutžera, Erich Lindenberg, Harald Metzkes, Otto Niemeyer-Holstein, Uwe Pfeifer, Núria Quevedo, Theodor Rosenhauer, Wilhelm Rudolph, Ernst Schroeder, Rosemarie Schulze, Frank Seidel, Max Uhlig, Trak Wendisch

 

The word melancholy has a variety of meanings. The term μέλαινα χολή (Melaina Kole), which comes from the Greek, means “black bile”. In ancient and medieval pathology, a relative excess of this was considered to be the cause of suffering that we now call epilepsy, depression, anxiety disorders or social phobia. At the same time, a concept of melancholy developed from late medieval poetry, which describes short-term moods such as fear, lethargy, heaviness or annoyance. These are caused by loneliness, sadness or the longing for a beloved place or person. In modern times, another meaning emerged in the sense of a wistful insight into the conditions of human existence: for example, the critical reflection of one’s own transience or the contradiction between an “autarkic self” and its social ties. In the transition from high to late modernism – from around the 1960s onwards – the great universal narratives, including the socialist one, increasingly disintegrated. The individual is therefore increasingly forced to constantly reorient himself in questions of existence – this is how the breeding ground for a specifically late modern melancholy was formed.

 

The exhibition features works from the BLMK collection created between 1930 and 2010 that convey subtle, melancholic moods and cast their gaze on an ambivalent, multi-layered reality. The majority of the works created in the GDR are characterized by a particular subversion. After all, the political leadership and art critics demanded clarity and optimism. Up until the 1970s, works with melancholic moods were often decried as “existentialist” or “death cult” (cf. Wilhelm Girnus 1951).

 

The works, arranged in thematic clusters, tell of modern uncertainties. In room M2, these are the fragility of interpersonal relationships and role identities; the processing of war experiences; the fear of social catastrophes as well as the sadness and vanitas themes that run through portraits and still lifes. The longing for space and freedom is also an important part of the thematic spectrum in this exhibition room. The city and landscape pictures shown in M3 have complex connotations. The urban subjects reveal claustrophobic feelings in the streets or moments of farewell in the face of social upheaval. What the works have in common is that the view is cast from a wistful distance at cities and landscapes that often seem inaccessible. In the same room there are also abstract depictions of bodies and landscapes. The decay and change of nature and people are no longer symbolized here, but are also expressed formally in style and technique.