We Do Not Forget

News from 07/19/2017

Eighty years ago today, the Nazis opened their propaganda exhibition „Degenerate Art“ in Munich. The SPK sees it as her their duty to ensure that the horrors and effects of this defamatory and denunciatory event are never forgotten.

Exhibition "Degenerate Art" at the Galeriegebäude, Münchener Hofgarten (Opening July, 19th 1937) © bpk / Zentralarchiv, SMB
Exhibition "Degenerate Art" at the Galeriegebäude, Münchener Hofgarten (Opening July, 19th 1937) © bpk / Zentralarchiv, SMB

SPK President Hermann Parzinger spoke about the National Socialists' „Degenerate Art“ operation:

This is one of the darkest and most terrible chapters in the history of German museums and art. Within a matter of days, a state commission confiscated 20,000 works by 1,400 modern artists. It is inconceivable to build a museum for 20th-century art in Berlin without creating a visible symbol to remind people of these events. The ostracism of the artists concerned, their systematic exclusion and persecution, had consequences that continue to be felt today.

„The Nationalgalerie, which under its then director Ludwig Justi had built up one of the most important collections of contemporary art, was deprived of over five hundred works. The SPK isn't just mourning the huge gaps that the 'Degenerate Art' operation tore in the collections of the museums; it is also researching the role played by museum staff in the selection and destruction of works of art.”

The President of the SPK also recalled the traveling exhibition „The Berlin Sculpture Find. 'Degenerate Art' in Bomb Debris“. In 2010, sculptures from the era of classical modernism were unearthed during an archaeological excavation in front of Berlin's city hall. Research showed that the works had been confiscated in the „Degenerate Art“ operation.

The Nationalgalerie now regularly presents exhibitions of modernist art at the „Neue Galerie“ in the Hamburger Bahnhof. The current one, „Rudolf Belling. Sculptures and Architectures“, runs until September 17, 2017. Works by Belling were among those held up to ridicule in the „Degenerate Art“ exhibition. 

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