OTTO DIX in Focus

In the autumn of 2023, the Deichtorhallen Hamburg will present a major show on Otto Dix and his influence on art up to the present day. The catalogue reproduces over 100 masterpieces from Otto Dix, most of them full-page (for copyright reasons, however, they cannot be shown here).The first point of emphasis of the two-part exhibition, curated by Ina Jessen, is on Dix’s supposedly ­apolitical work from the Nazi era, illuminating the internal nexus of political censorship, atistic conformity and oppositional iconography. To date, Otto Dix’s work during the Nazi era has played a rather subordinate role in the exhibition and ­research landscape. In order to do justice to Dix’s landscapes, portraits, and Christian subjects, the book places the painter, his work, and his professional career in the artistic and political context of the Weimar Republic, ­National Socialism, and the period shortly after the end of the war. The second area of focus of both the exhibition and the catalog centers on the artistic reception of Otto Dix with regard to subjects, political iconography, style, technique, and genre. On the one hand, the show exposes the changes in cultural and social con­ditions in the reception of Dix’s work, and on the other hand, it demonstrates the great ­fascination that his work exerts on some forty of the world’s best-known contem­porary ­artists, between appropriation and reinterpretation. The selected artists include Yael Bartana, Monica Bonvicini, Marc Brandenburg, John Currin, Alice Neel, Nicolas Party, Cindy Sherman, ­Katharina Sieverding and Kara Walker.

Exhibition:
Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 30/9/2023 – 1/4/2024