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The monthly German-language art magazine Art – Das Kunstmagazin nominated the show Emil Nolde: The Artist during the Third Reich, co-curated by BCB’s Professor of Art History Aya Soika together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring at the Neue Nationalgalerie / Hamburger Bahnhof in 2019, among the twelve best art exhibitions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2019. This qualifies the Nolde exhibition for the Art magazine’s Curator Prize, which is selected from the twelve entries by a panel of experts.

The jury praised the Emil Nolde show for its “meticulous research effort” and for being “impressively prepared.”

Earlier this year, the Emil Nolde exhibition was considered the best Berlin art show by a jury of nine journalists for a top created by tip Berlin. Seven of the nine journalists rated the show as “exceptional.”

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

On April 12, the exhibition A German Legend. Emil Nolde and the Nazi Regime curated by Bard College Berlin's Professor of Art History Aya Soika opens at the Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof.

The exhibitions looks at the Expressionist painter's role during the Third Reich and asks how Nolde’s ostracism and occupational ban fit with our knowledge that he was a Nazi Party member, and that he kept faith with the regime until the end of the war. To accompany the exhibition, a richly illustrated volume of essays and pictures (also in an English edition), as well as a separate volume with a timeline and more than 100 documents, will be published. The show is curated together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring, and made possible by the Friends of the Nationalgalerie and supported by the Friede Springer Stiftung.

The exhibition Emil Nolde – A German Legend. The Artist and the Nazi Regime is based on the results of a multi-year academic research project which for the first time was able to analyse the extensive holdings of the Nolde estate in Seebüll, uncovering so much new material that the conventional Nolde narrative must be revised. Thus, for example, the exhibition will present the famous Unpainted Pictures – the small-format watercolours Nolde was reputed to have secretly painted at Seebüll during his occupational ban – in a completely new light, explaining them as part of a long-standing practice of self-stylisation. The importance of this self-stylisation – and how strongly it has influenced our view of Nolde – will be demonstrated to visitors through a reconstruction of the ‘painting gallery’ in Nolde’s studio house in Seebüll. This reconstruction will display the paintings and watercolours just as the ageing artist himself arranged them during the wartime winter of 1941/42. The exhibition will present over 100 originals, some of which have not previously been shown, with references to Nolde’s writings and in the historical context of their creation, in order to reveal the multi-layered relationships between paintings, the artist’s self-presentation, his ostracism, and development of his legend. What impact did the ‘Third Reich’ have on Emil Nolde's artistic work? To what extent do some of his works, such as his depictions of mythic sacrificial scenes or Nordic people, correspond with his sympathies for the regime? What effects did Nolde’s defamation and occupational ban have on his artistic practice and political outlook? And how did the myths about Nolde develop in the post-war period?

The exhibition will run through September 15.

More information>>

Media features in connection to Soika's research on Emil Nolde
To the Bitter End, in London Review of Books (December 5, 2019)
Hängt sie auf, in Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 14, 2019)
Die angepassten Expressionisten, on SWR 2 (June 7, 2019)
Emil Nolde, der Nazi, in Süddeutsche Zeitung (April 11, 2019)
Le passé trouble d’Emil Nolde, une ombre au tableau in Le Monde (April 11, 2019)
Der entartete Nazi, RBB (April 10, 2019)
New Berlin exhibition exposes Emil Nolde’s Nazi ties in The Art Newspaper (April 10, 2019)
Stripping Away Lies to Expose a Painter’s Nazi Past in The New York Times (April 10, 2019)

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |