Lucerne, Switzerland - The Museum of Art Lucerne has selected 120 works by German artists from the Berg Collection are being shown in the Museum of Art Lucerne under the title, borrowed from a painting by Karl Hödicke, ‘Fireworks over Alexanderplatz’. The exhibition principally includes paintings, but also some works on paper and a small number of sculptures. The chief interest lies in the resurrection of figurative expressionist painting from 1968 onwards. Alongside this there are smaller groups of works by artistic predecessors from classic modern art and Informel.
 
The collection, assembled over the past thirty years and still looked after by Hans and Christine Berg draws its life from an undogmatic selection of works which reveals a sure sense of quality. The Bergs have their roots in the Ruhr Area, where they have spent most of their lives. Today they move seasonally between Lucerne and Umbria.
 
Apart from a small but fine collection of classics from Emil Nolde to Fritz Winter, these two collectors have been – and still are – passionate about artists from their own generation and thus about an artistic expression rooted both thematically and formally in their own contemporary history. The past forty years in Germany have certainly been enormously eventful. The corresponding art scene was equally intense, making the title ‘Fireworks over Alexanderplatz’ an apt metaphor in every respect.
 
If individual paintings, including those by such artists as Graubner, Hödicke, Koberling, Lüpertz or Middendorf have in the meantime risen to become prominent key works in new German painting, and become part of the general visual memory, the oeuvres of artists such as Chevalier, Finkeldei, Wendisch and others form a further development of figurative painting in Germany. With a number of paintings which, if not exactly iconic, are none the less extremely incisive, Museum of Art Lucerne will hold an exhibition featuring a concise assemblage of works that will invite visitors both to re-encounter old works and discover new ones. The Swiss art public will thus be given the opportunity to become closer acquainted with what may, in these parts, be rather too unfamiliar a chapter in recent German art history.
 
The exhibition is curated by Peter Fischer and is a co-production with Bochum Museum and its director Dr. Hans Günter Golinski.  On exhibition March 1 – May 18, 2008.

Participating artists:

Johannes Brus (*1942), Peter Chevalier (*1953), Bernd Finkeldei (*1947), Lothar Fischer (*1933), Gotthard Graubner (*1930), Erich Heckel (1833-1970), K.H. Hödicke (*1938), Alexej Jawlensky (1864-1941), Max Kaus (1891-1977), Ida Kerkovius (1879-1970), Konrad Klaphek (*1935), Paco Knöller (*1950), Bernd Koberling (*1938), Markus Lüpertz (*1941), August Macke (1887-1914), Helmut Middendorf (*1953), Gabriele Münter (1877-1962), Emil Nolde (1867-1956), Bernhard Schultze (1915-2005), Emil Schumacher (1912-1999), Norbert Tadeusz (*1940), Hans Thuar (1887-1945), Trak Wendisch (*1958), Fritz Winter (1905-1976), Erwin Wortelkamp (*1938), Bernd Zimmer (*1948)

Catalogue:

Feuerwerk über dem Alexanderplatz. Deutsche Malerei seit 1968 aus der Sammlung Berg,  Ed. Hans Günter Golinski und Peter Fischer, with an essay by Ulrich Wilmes and an interview with Hans und Christine Berg.

In German only. Bochum: Museum Bochum; Luzern: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 2007. 178 pp, 133 colour illustrations, hardcover, ISBN 978-3-267-00153-9, CHF 48.-. Kunstmuseum Luzern || Museum of Art Lucerne ||Europaplatz 1 CH-6002 ||Luzern

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