Ruin and Rush. Berlin 1910-1930

About the Exhibition

Drawing on works selected from the Neue Nationalgalerie's classical modernist collection, this exhibition sheds light on Berlin in the 1910s and 1920s from multiple angles. It reflects the intense conflict and change Berlin underwent during World War I and the Weimar Republic. The exhibition reveals the dramatically contrasting landscape of Berlin — prosperity and ruin, liberation and extremism, chaos and innovation, all at once. About 35 works are on view, including works visually expressing Berlin's urban growth and social change. Major works include Otto Dix's The Skat Players (1920), Hannah Höch's Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919), Oskar Nerlinger's Berlin's Metropolitan Railway (1930), and Otto Nagel's Boys from Wedding (1928). The exhibition emphasizes the background against which Berlin grew into a global center of modernism at the time, and the historical context in which chaos and hope coexisted in the city, holding important significance in the history of modern art.