revonnaH. Kunst der Avantgarde in Hannover 1912 – 1933

When Hannover became a “modern city of art”! The institutional impetus for bringing the rather conservative provincial capital of Hannover into contact with the artistic avant-garde came from Albert Gideon Brinckmann, when he became director of the Kestner-Museum in 1912 and radically changed its acquisition policy. Even before the First World War, Herbert von Garvens had assembled a modern art collection, private entrepreneurs such as Hermann Bahlsen and Fritz Beindorff (Pelikan) had commissioned modern artists, and a civic commitment had been established that finally culminated in the founding of the Kestner-Gesellschaft in 1916. Both this and the formation of the Hannoversche Sezession from 1917 onwards promoted, through exhibitions and publications, engagement with contemporary tendencies – Expressionism, abstraction, Neue Sachlichkeit – and allowed Hannover to mature into a “modern city of art.” During the Weimar period Kurt Schwitters was among the most important artists and was a busy “networker” who brought artists such as El Lissitzky (Kabinett der Abstrakten) or Naum Gabo to Hannover. At the Provincialmuseum, Alexander Dorner revolutionised the presentation and communication of art, and the avant-garde around Schwitters met in the salon of Käte Steinitz; artists’ groups such as “die abstrakten hannover” came into being, and a Hannoverian variant of Neue Sachlichkeit developed out of the municipal school of applied arts. Yet all these activities, which reached far beyond Hannover, came to an abrupt end with the National Socialists’ seizure of power. Going beyond the exhibition, the book will also take up subjects such as architecture, film and literature and may thus become the standard work on this lively period of Hannover’s history.

Exhibition:
Sprengel Museum Hannover, 23/9/2017–7/1/2018