Die beste Bildung

Since the first attraction I saw in Germany was an art museum (the Alte Pinakothek in Munich), I decided that my time in the country should conclude with a visit to an art museum as well. So on Wednesday, right before I left Hamburg, I visited the Deichtorhallen and the Kunsthalle.

The Deichtorhallen, converted from a former fruit market, is Hamburg’s biggest exhibition space for contemporary art. It was rather expensive – a concessionary ticket set me back €8 – but the items on display definitely justified the price. I started with the south hall, which current exhibitions were by the German photographers Herbert Tobias and Wolfgang Zuborn. Tobias, being the more accomplished of the two, occupied most of the hall, while Zuborn had a small space in the middle.

Outside and inside the north wing of the Deichtorhalle

I generally find it harder to appreciate a good painting than a good photo. Even the works of the most famous photographers (say Candida Hofer) do not impress me that much, because I considered photography to be less a medium of personal expression than one of historical documentation. After all, images can explode out of a paintbrush onto a blank canvas even when there is no motivation other than the artist’s thought processes alone, whereas photography always requires a physical subject, and is therefore more defined and limited by boundaries of reality. This exhibition of Tobias’ works, however, opened my eyes to how powerful photography can be. The images he captured were mostly subtle and melancholic, but had a very expressive quality that made them harder to forget than some of the most strong, explicit photography I have seen.

From left: An der russischen Front; Selbstportrait; Sonntags am Wannsee

The first set of photographs on display was made when Tobias was serving in the Germany army on the Eastern Front in 1943. There were no grand images of war and destruction, just simple depictions of dead animals, destroyed religious objects, and Russian children painstakingly shining the shoes of soldiers in order to make a living. Even so, they articulated a sense of pain, loneliness and poesy which immediately reminded me of The Chariots Rattle On by the great Chinese poet Du Fu.

Tobias spent a lot of time in the European capitals of Paris and Berlin, so many of his photos were taken there. His images of Berlin give a striking account of the city’s reemergence after the destruction of WWII and the heartbreak associated with the tearing of the city into east and west divisions. Symbols of purity were often paired up with settings of destruction and aggression: the innocent faces of children were photographed in midst of rubble left behind from Allied Bombings, whereas florists were shown selling elegant bouquets in front of bricked-up windows that were typical of the East-West Berlin border. The contradiction of themes very vividly conveyed the complex, confusing yet fascinating character of the city in the 1950s and 60s. Paris, on the other hand, was the venue for Tobias’ exploration of the relationship between romance and solitude. Through unorchestrated yet perfectly composed images of commoners in the city, he provided a penetrating glimpse into the hearts of its residents, and shared with the viewers their fears and passions.

From Left: Zoobrücke (Berlin); Eisenacher Str. Berlin; Jardin Luxembourg (Paris)

Another two sets of photos that I particularly enjoyed were “Einsamkeit, Verlorenheit” (Loneliness, Lostness) and “Das Lied von der sexuellen Hörigkeit” (The Song of Sexual Dependence), both of them consisting mainly of portraits. The latter gave a remarkable picture of West German youths struggling with, exploring and discovering their sexual identity in the Adenauer Era. These photos showed an increasing amount of sensuality, desire and seduction: the earlier ones were more figurative, reflecting the conservatism and prejudice against alternative lifestyles that were prevalent at the time, whereas the latter became more straightforward as a sign of liberation. I thought it was absolutely fantastic.

And at the end of the exhibition there was a quote which made me admire this great photographer even more:

Es ist manchmal lästig, nicht genug Geld zu haben. Arm, wirklich arm, würde ich mich nur fühlen, wenn ich keine Lebensfreude, keine Liebe, keine Schmerz mehr fühlen konnte. (It is sometimes inconvenient to not have enough money. But I shall only feel poor, really poor, if I can feel no joy in living, no love and no pain more.)

Unlike Tobias, Zuborn mainly photographed objects instead of people. Many of the images on display were of modern-day Shanghai and China, and through clever use of framing, shadows, reflections, divisions and blurs, the collision of old and new, west and east as well as poor and rich were subtlely illustrated. The mix of joy and frustration that accompanies China’s emergence as a world power has always been of interest to me, so I definitely enjoyed Zuborn’s works.

The north hall had two exhibitions as well, by the Austrian painter Herbert Brandl and the British-American painter Cecily Brown respectively. Brandl never bothered to title his paintings, so it is difficult to refer to a particular one, but I especially liked his collection of Mount Everest images, which showed a wonderful blend of grandeur, ambition, formidability and mystique. Brown, however, did not appeal to me that much. I can characterize most of her works into three categories: ugly splatters of colour more incomprehensible than what Jackson Pollock made, glorified pornography and improvisations by somebody high on drugs. I generally would not use the word conservative to describe my own tastes, but Brown’s paintings were way beyond what I can stomach.

Three untitled works by Herbert Brandl

After the Deichtorhallen I went to the Hamburger Kunsthalle, one of the most respected venues for art exhibitions in Germany. It was probably as big as the three Pinakotheks in Munich put into one, and it had visual art of all imaginable categories, from traditional religious paintings to modern-day installations. A typical walk starting from the north entrance would go through the gallery of old masters, continue with 19th century works by the likes of Caspar David Friedrich, and then go on to representative masterpieces of impressionism and classical modernism. Then one goes across a square or through a tunnel to an extension known as the Gallerie der Gegenwart (Gallery of the Present), which showcases the more recent art.

I walked briskly through the gallery of old masters so that I could spend more time with the 19th century works. Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer was the painting which had brought me to this museum, so naturally I spent a couple minutes admiring it, and discovering many intricacies that I had not noticed in reproductions. As I continued to the impressionist works, I realized how the finest paintings instantly stand out even in an enormous sea of treasures – Claude Monet’s Birnen and Trauben and Vincent van Gogh’s Mohnfeld (on loan from the Bremen Kunsthalle), for example, easily stole the spotlight from all the works that surrounded them. (Note that the images here do not do justice to these paintings, because the thick layers and rich texturing of oil paint is what makes them come to life.)

From left: Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Caspar David Friedrich);
Birnen und Trauben (Claude Monet); Mohnfeld (Vincent van Gogh)

There was a vast collection of 20th century works, of which Kandinsky’s Arabs I (Cemetery) particularly stood out to me. I found it enormously intriguing how he could use such vibrant colours to create a sense of exoticism which preserving the tranquility and melancholy that defines a place of burial. And although they were not placed next to each other in the museum, Paul Klee’s Der Goldfisch and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Das Paar vor den Menschen both provided insightful social commentary into diversity and discrimination. Of course, there were many other excellent pieces of which I took note, particularly Max Ernst’s Ein schöner Morgen and Picasso’s Tete de femme.

From left: Arabs I (Cemetery) (Wassily Kandinsky); Der Goldfisch (Paul Klee);
Das Paar vor den Menschen (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner)

The Gallerie der Gegenwart had works and installations from the decade after WWII to recent years. There was a special exhibition called “Wir Kleinbürger” by Sigmar Polke, whose works Professor Jennings had explained to me earlier, but unfortunately it was closed for the day. I still, however, had a great time there because there was just so much to see, from creative videos to iconic paintings and groundbreaking sculptures.

From left: 192 Farben (Gerhard Richter); Menschenschlange (Wir Kleinbürger) (Sigmar Polke);
Series of Vulnerable Arrangements – 7 Basle Lights (Haegue Yang)

Had I known earlier that there was so much to see in the Kunsthalle, I would have allocated a full day to it. Alas, this was my last day in Hamburg, and I had purchased a ticket for the train at 17:28, so I had to go after two and a half hours of roaming the museums corridors and halls. It felt somewhat strange to be leaving Germany after spending almost six weeks here, and I know that I definitely will miss the country, the language, the delicious food (and people), and the superb mix of history and innovation. But this is not the time for nostalgia – after all, I had both Copenhagen and Stockholm to look forward to! I will have to use to new currencies, cultures, systems, and deal with not understanding the text that is around me, but I know there will be a lot to see and do, and I am very, very excited about it!