Dream and Revolution. He explored all areas of the artistic landscape and during his journey through the subconscious recorded his enigmatic and poetic visions of the great interconnections of the universe and nature. 200 works in the exhibition, ranging from painting, collage, drawing and sculpture to the special Ernst techniques frottage and decalcomania. The retrospective show the most important artistic stages in his work: from the Dada period in 1891-1922 until the the years before artist's death in 1976.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Moderna Museet in Stockholm are bringing the world-famous
Surrealist Max Ernst to Scandinavia with a large-scale retrospective exhibition of 200 works.
From 6 February 2009 the Danish public can for the first time make the acquaintance of one of the
true greats of the twentieth century. More than any one in his generation of innovative artists, Max
Ernst – Dadaist, Surrealist, romantic and fantasizing genius – was on the side of experiment.
His visual worlds shocked the age and offer new, strange insights into the universe of art.
Max Ernst (1891-1976) was of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century – an artist
who throughout his career changed style and attitude, and who constantly questioned and reflected on what
art is and can be. No other artist of his time was as revolutionary and innovative as Max Ernst in the assault
on the traditional views of visual art. Behind his work lies a permanent rebellion against all that has already
been achieved and formulated.
Viewed in the perspective of today Max Ernst is more relevant than ever. It is the ambition of the exhibition
to show how his pictorial world lies very close to what younger generations today are experiencing in the
fantasy genre and with the latest possibilities of computer technology.
His work was pioneering for a great variety of modern art’s image-creating forms and techniques – and his
visionary pictorial universe, based on unexpected juxtapositions of visual elements and symbols, has been
interpreted again and again. Max Ernst explored all areas of the artistic landscape: painting, drawing,
graphics, sculpture and collage, and during his journey through the subconscious recorded his enigmatic
and poetic visions of the great interconnections of the universe and nature.
Louisiana’s exhibition is the first major presentation of Max Ernst in Denmark, and with its retrospective
approach will show the most important artistic stages in Max Ernst’s work: the Dada years in Cologne in
1891-1922, his Surrealist period in France until 1941, the period in the USA, 1941-1953, as well as Max
Ernst’s return to Europe and the years in France up to the artist’s death in 1976. The exhibition presents
the inexplicable and dream-like – but also demonstrates the artist’s lively irony and humour in the approx.
200 works in the exhibition, ranging from painting, collage, drawing and sculpture to the special Max Ernst
techniques frottage and décalcomania.
The exhibition Max Ernst. Dream and Revolution has been mounted as a collaboration between Louisiana
Museum of Modern Art and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, both of which have their 50th anniversary in
2008.
The curatorial team consists of the German art historian and leading Max Ernst authority Werner Spies, curator Iris Müller-Westermann, Moderna Museet, and curator Kirsten Degel, Louisiana.
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