Your Golden Hair, Sabine

Taken at the San Fransico Museum of Modern Art

Every new generation is tasked with understanding previous tragedies of their world, of contextualizing something they did not live through and can, therefore, view objectively. In the San Francisco MOMA exhibition, “German Art After 1960,” this is the underlying message—the art of a generation growing up in a post-World War II Germany. 

Artist grappled with this task in different ways, in technique, style, and form. Yet in all cases, they found a way to translate their relationship they felt with the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II. Each artist had a different perspective from which to view the results of the war, from being a student in Berlin during the Cold War (Georg Baselitz) to losing her homeland to the Nazi occupation (Magdalena Abakanowicz). To emphasize these differences, each artist was given their own space--almost an entire room, in which their works were displayed. Walking through these installations was like walking into separate theaters, each playing a different movie. 

Anselm Kiefer, Melancholia, 1990-91, Lead, Ash, Glass, and Steel, SF MOMA

By creating these separate spaces, curators allowed for the design to complement the artists work, and in most cases, it did so. Especially so for Anselm Kiefer's portion, as depicted above, which controlled a large room and a part of the hallway. In it, Kiefer's huge and apocalyptic works domineered over the viewer and enfolded them on all sides. Wherever you turned you were still engulfed in Kiefer's displays of decay. 

(Left) Margarethe, 1981, Oil, Straw, Emulsion, & Gelatin Silver Print on Linen      

(Right) Die Meistersinger, 1982, Oil, Acrylic Paint, Resin, Straw, & Paper on Linen

Keifers work, especially that shown here, connects to a past that he does not want to be forgotten. He emphasizes the remains from which Germany had to grow after the defeat of World War II and the suffering that has resonated through decades. Perhaps this is best demonstrated with Das Museum

Anselm Keifer, Das Museum, 1984-92, Acrylic Paint, Emulsion, & Ash on Canvas on Lead

Das Museum depicts the Hall of Soldiers, a Nationalist Socialist Memorial, brought to ruin. Once a glowing symbol of tyrannous power, it is now depicted as a ghostly shell of its former self--mirroring the fall of Fascist Germany. On the bottom of the didactic reads a warning, "do not touch: contains lead." Indeed not only are the contents of the painting about dangerous and poisonous ideas, but the very material can also bring about death. In Keifer's section of the exhibition, there was no escaping the past.

While Keifer and other canvas artists may have benefited from this arrangement of "rooms," those multi-media or sculpture artists such as Jannis Kaunellis and Tony Cragg did not. These spaces felt busy--cramped. It was difficult (especially with the number of visitors that day) to navigate the pieces and appreciate them alongside one another. 

Tony Cragg Installations SF MOMA

Tony Cragg, Yellow Bottle, 1982, Found Plastic

Much like the exhibition space, Cragg's artworks are busy. Although they may appear more light-hearted than other pieces in the exhibition, Cragg's work actually extends a message of warning, bringing to the viewer's attention the issues of waste and our relationship in general. By using these found pieces, Cragg engages with the inherent meaning that comes with certain materials and incorporates that into his work. 

Tony Cragg, Forminfera, 1989, Plaster


One of the highlights of the exhibition was certainly the Gerhard Richter section, which held some of his best-known work including his incredibly realistic depictions of  'blurry photos." These "photos" depict innocent family scenes, something that should evoke nostalgia. However, there is something in these works which puts off the viewer, making the experience uncomfortable in some way. Almost as if this photo was taken the moment before something terrible happened to its subjects. This sense of displacement and anxiety are things Richter himself experienced when he moved from East to West Germany during the Cold War.

Gerhard Richter, Familie Ruhnan, 1969, Oil on Linen

Much like the other artists on display, Richter was experimental with his technique and style. Having studied Socialist Realism in the East, he moved onto modern abstraction techniques in the West.  The 1960s and subsequent decades were (and are) a time of expansion on the Modern artist's breakage from academic painting. "German Art After 1960" provides a wonderful sample of contemporary art which was inspired by the likes of Joesph Beuys and Rothko, and the permission they gave to use new kinds of materials and techniques. 

Gerhard Richter, Lesende, 1994, Oil on Linen. Portrait of Richter's wife Sabine

Museum-goers who walk through this exhibition will be treated to the many different experiences, reactions, and values of contemporary German artists who had to grapple with not only a horrific national tragedy but also a radically changing world. In that experience, these artists found a way to express themselves that was unique, transcendent, and meaningful to a worldwide audience.