German Expressionism in Art and Film
The global trauma of the First World War (1914–1918) was most strongly felt in the country that lost: Germany. Onerous reparations, hyperinflation of currency, and mass unemployment left large swaths of the population in despair and anxious for the future. Artists captured this sense of anxiety through the lenses of psychoanalysis and left-wing ideology, but also through revived popular art media like woodcut prints and lithographs, resulting in a new style called Expressionism. They organized in several German cities, publishing magazines like Die Brücke,Der Blaue Reiter, Der Sturm, Die Aktion, and Der Bildermann, among others.
Expressionist style also had a huge impact on the new mass media of cinema, which was offering a collective way to experience a whole range of stories, ranging from fables like Nosferatu and Golem to new, socially critical narratives like Metropolis and Nerven (Nerves).
German Expressionism in Art and Film is the first exhibition to fully explore this shared style through approximately 120 prints and paintings that are joined with 50 film clips and stills. Visitors will be immersed in the movement that has come to symbolize a generation’s trauma and search for healing in these years during the Weimar Republic through to the Second World War.
The movement will be explored in three sections. In Rupture and Escape, we see the emergence of an emotionally exaggerated artistic style that exposes the psychological impact of economic hardship, industrialization, and urbanization. Friedrich Murnau’s provocative The Last Man and Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis are paired with expressive woodcuts by Grosz, Dix, and Kollwitz. In Dream and Trauma, the shattering personal and psychological effects of the war are explored by artists like Kirchner, Nolde, and Pechstein and films like Robert Reinert’s Nerven (Nerves) and Lang’s Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. Finally, in Form and Deformation, we see the refinement of an Expressionist aesthetic as it developed from films like Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with entire Expressionistic stage sets to the fully filmic productions like Karlheinz Martin’s From Morn to Midnight. These are paired with works of art by Münter, Heckel and Macke.
Expressionism continued during the rise of the Third Reich, which declared most Expressionist art “degenerate” and sought to expose it to derision and dismissal, unintentionally amplifying its reach and popularity.
Expressionism has had an enduring impact, giving rise to the horror film and film noir, as well as Neo-Expressionist art in Germany and beyond, and is foundational to much figurative art today. The renowned director of Metropolis, Fritz Lang, fled Nazi Germany to the US and produced 1940s Hollywood films like Woman at the Window, Scarlet Street, and The Big Heat that were foundational to Film Noir and its existentialist mood. The dramatic imagery and tortured style of Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz revived the Expressionist aesthetic in the 1980s, and even the works of Philip Guston, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Susan Rothenberg can be counted among the descendants of the German movement.
The Portland Art Museum’s internationally recognized film and new media arm, PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow, will explore the cinematic legacy of German Expressionism throughout the exhibition. PAM CUT will screen films in conjunction with German Expressionism in Art and Film at the Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium and at PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater on Portland’s east side. PAM CUT will host an opening weekend trifecta of Nosferatu X Nosferatu X Nosferatu, presenting Murnau’s 1922 classic along with Werner Herzog’s 1979 interpretation and Robert Eggers’ 2024 version at PAM CUT @ The Whitsell. Running from February through April, PAM CUT @ The Whitsell will be featuring films as part of their I Heart Darkness film series, including modern takes inspired by German Expressionism. Other highlights include a PAM/PAM CUT partner program with the Oregon Symphony backing Fritz Lang’s Metropolis with a live soundtrack, as well as films influenced by Metropolis.
Organized by Institut für Kulturaustausch and coordinated for Portland Art Museum by Lloyd DeWitt, Ph.D, The Richard and Janet Geary Curator of European & American Art Pre-1930.