Visual Culture – Page 2 – Weimar Studies Network

Hannah Höch at Whitechapel

Hannah Höch is one of the most fascinating figures of Weimar Berlin, not only as an avant-garde artist, but also as a reflection of social and cultural changes. She embodied the ‘New Woman’ – the idea of the modern, rational and emancipated female, that enjoyed great popularity in Germany after 1918 – while at the same time criticizing this new image of femininity in her work.

This exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, the first major show of her work in the UK, is a good opportunity to get acquainted with this Weimar icon.

>> review (The Guardian)

Modernist Journals Project

The Modernist Journals Project at Brown University and the University of Tulsa has been an important digital archive since 1995, offering scans of English-language avant-garde publications from 1890 to 1922. The archive includes titles like Wyndham Lewis’ Blast, The Crisis and Scribner’s Magazine, and more will be added in the future.

Ullstein-Berichte online

The Ullstein-Berichte, a public relations magazine distributed by the Ullstein publishing house from 1926-1933, has been digitized by the DFG-funded project Illustrierte Presse. The magazine is not only an important source for research on Ullstein and the Weimar press, but also on the developing marketing industry in Germany in the early 20th century.

Max Pechstein biography

This new biography of Max Pechstein includes a very insightful chapter about his life during the Weimar years: ‘Max Pechstein (1881–1955) is one of the most prominent German artists of the twentieth century, not least because of his crucial role in the breakthrough of German Expressionism. This long overdue biography combines the portrayal of an outstanding artistic personality with the story of an individual German who struggled through the political upheavals of his time. Pechstein’s work is presented in the cultural context of museum politics and art associations, art dealers and critics, market forces and cultural trends.’

Fulda, Bernhard / Soika, Aya: Max Pechstein: The Rise and Fall of Expressionism

Illustrated magazines online

The University of Erfurt and the Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden offer an amazing collection of digitized illustrated magazines of the 1920s, including Der Querschnitt, UHU, Das jüdische Magazin, Kriminal-Magazin, Auto-Magazin, Das Magazin, Revue des Monats, Das Leben and Scherl’s Magazin.

More than 650 issues of these ‘magazines of classical modernity’ are available on the site, individually tagged with keywords such as ‘women’s liberation’, ‘car culture’, etc.

The project started in 2012, a work shop seminar on 4-5 July 2013 offers an introduction to featured magazines for interested researchers.

German Digital Library online

The beta version of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek goes live today. Financed by the Federal Government, by the states and by local authorities, the DDB offers ‘everyone unrestricted access to Germany’s cultural and scientific heritage, that is, access to millions of books, archived items, images, sculptures, pieces of music and other sound documents, as well as films and scores, from all over Germany.’

New Study on Photojournalism

Penn State University Press have just published Daniel Magilow’s new book on The Photography of Crisis. The Photo Essays of Weimar Germany. Magilow examines the phenomenon of photojournalism and “photo books” by art photographers as a turning point in Weimar’s visual culture and important commentary to Germany’s history:

‘The fifteen years in Germany between the end of World War I and the National Socialists’ rise to power in 1933 stand out as one of the twentieth century’s most tumultuous periods. These years of political and economic upheaval famously spawned significant and lasting Continue reading “New Study on Photojournalism”

Art and satire magazines online

The University of Heidelberg has opened a real treasure trove of historical journals to researchers worldwide. The University Library has digitized over 50 German and French art and satire magazines from its collections. The material dates from the 19th to the early part of the 20th century, including PAN, Jugend, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Der Kunstwart, Die Form, Kladderadatsch, Ulk and Le Fifre.

Digitization and Indexing of Illustrated Art- and Satirical Journals of the 19th and Early 20th Century

Many thanks to Mary-Ann Middelkoop for pointing it out.

Musical trade between London and Berlin

West End and Friedrichstraße. Cross-Cultural Exchange in Popular Musical Theatre 1890-1939, an interesting international research project based at Freie Universität Berlin and Goldsmiths College London, considers the cultural transfer between Berlin’s and London’s musical districts. A report on a recent conference on the topic can be found online (in English).

New Perspectives on Weimar

The new book Beyond Glitter and Doom. The Contingency of the Weimar Republic, edited by Jochen Hung, Godela Weiss-Sussex and Geoff Wilkes and based on the proceedings of a conference of the same name, gathers the latest research on Weimar history and culture:

‘The Weimar Republic has received more attention in academic research and popular culture than almost any other period in German history. Nevertheless, its prevailing historical image remains surprisingly simplistic: it is often seen as an era of accelerated cultural progress on the one hand and extreme political unrest, social upheaval and economic crisis on the other, a view epitomized in the ubiquitous image of the ‘dance on the volcano’.

Continue reading “New Perspectives on Weimar”

Bauhaus Online

The Bauhaus Archive Berlin, the Weimar Classic Foundation and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation have created an online resource ‘for Bauhaus connoisseurs and enthusiasts’, offering a detailed (and appropriately well-presented) historical reference book, a magazine about the current impact of the famous design school and a calendar of Bauhaus-related events in Europe.

Bauhaus in London

From 3 May, the Barbican in London will stage ‘the biggest Bauhaus exhibition in the UK in over 40 years’, including works from Josef and Anni Albers, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Hannes Meyer, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Gunta Stölzl, as well as a two-week summer school led by leading design practitioners.

To mark the occasion, the Britsh newspaper The Guardian has published a celebratory slide-show and an interesting article about the history of the Bauhaus.

German History in Documents and Images

German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) is a comprehensive collection of primary source material documenting Germany’s political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present, created by the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. in cooperation with the Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and IEG-MAPS (Institute for European History, Mainz). It comprises original German texts, all of which are accompanied by new English translations, and a wide range of visual imagery, including maps.

The section on Weimar Germany has been curated by Eric Weitz and Eric Roubinek and is divided into 14 categories, including Politics, Economics and Society, Architecture and Urban Life and Bodies and Sex. Featured documents include the Stinnes-Legien Agreement of 1918, Walter Gropius’ Program of the State Bauhaus in Weimar (1919), data on regional secondary school enrollment (1911, 1926/27, and 1938) and George Grosz’s painting ‘Pillars of Society’ (1926).

Weimar at the Berlinale

The Berinale Film Festival rolls out the red carpet today and Weimar cinema takes centre stage: this year’s Retrospektive part of the festival is dedicated to Mezhrabpom, the Russian-German film studio dubbed ‘The Red Dream Factory’.

On 12 February, the Filmstudio Babelsberg, where most of the great works of Weimar cinema like Metropolis or Der blaue Engel were produced, will celebrate its centenary with a special programme at the Berlinale. German media are already gearing up to the 100-year anniversary with various features on Babelsberg’s history:

Babelsberg-Diva Asta Nielsen: Deutschlans erster Superstar (Der Spiegel)

Hollywood in Brandenburg: 100 Jahre Babelsberg (Financial Times Deutschland)

Film ab! Ein Streifzug durch Babelsberg – und 100 Jahre Film (Deutschlandradio)

Studio Babelsberg: Die Illusionsmaschine (Berliner Zeitung)

Journal Review: Fotogeschichte, issue 121

In the current issue of Fotogeschichte, Patrick Rössler looks at the development of the visual style of ‘Neues Sehen’ in the 1920s. Based on in-depth archival work, he is able to prove that the illustrated magazines of the Weimar Republic played a far greater role in the introduction of modern photography than previously thought.