Case Study22 National Museums Liverpool German Revolution: Expressionist Prints
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CASE STUDY22 NATIONAL MUSEUMS LIVERPOOL GERMAN REVOLUTION: EXPRESSIONIST PRINTS ingeniouscreative.com ingeniouscreative.com ABOUT THE THE STARTING CLIENT... POINT... IT ALL STARTED WAY BACK IN 1851 WHEN IN LATE 2019, INGENIOUS WERE INVITED TO PRESENT THE 13TH EARL OF DERBY DONATED HIS TO KEY NML STAFF WITH A VIEW TO JOINING THEIR ENORMOUS NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTION EXHIBITION AND MARKETING AGENCY ROSTERS. TO THE TOWN OF LIVERPOOL. THIS WAS NML encompasses such venues Part of this process was to present initial concepts for THE BEGINNINGS OF WHAT WOULD ONE as Merseyside Maritime Museum, a forthcoming temporary exhibition at Lady Lever Art DAY BECOME WORLD MUSEUM. The Museum of Liverpool and Port Gallery. “German Revolution: Expressionist Prints” was Sunlight’s Lady Lever Art Gallery. Fast forward over 160 years and the creation of a touring exhibition from The University of Glasgow’s All images © NML 6 more museums and galleries, Liverpool now Hunterian Museum, and featured powerful prints by some has one of the largest collections of museums of the most influential artists of the 20th century, including and galleries in the UK. work by Munch, Schiele and Kokoschka. In 1986 it was decided that the museums in The exhibition explored how the social, political, sexual the city had collected works of art and objects and moral struggles taking place during the turbulent of such historic and scientific significance that period of the German Revolution (1918-1919) moved ownership should be handed over to the nation artists to produce such dramatic imagery. in order to protect them. From here, National The exhibition covers a period of time that coincided Museums Liverpool was born. with an inspiring and stimulating era of graphic design, NML exists today to allow us all to learn from such as Jan Tschichold, Aleksander Rodchenko, the and enjoy amazing, varied collections and Bauhaus movement and so on. This gave us a wonderful venues. starting point for the visual language of the exhibition © Neil Watson and marketing collateral, as you can see from our initial scamps and visuals here. Our initial creative concepts were produced once we had viewed the space in person during a site visit and also inspected the objects our designs were to display. We always ‘sanity check’ point sizes on the studio wall! 2 3 ingeniouscreative.com ingeniouscreative.com Working closely with both LLAG DIX DOOR DIX GOYA the graphics contractor and GOYA GAUGUIN GRAPHICS GERMAN PECHSTEIN client team allowed us to BARLACH REVOLUTION KOLLWITZ 200mm x 400mm SCHIELE PECHSTEIN Expressionist prints KOKOSCHKA quickly arrive at preferred KOLLWITZ FELIXMÜLLER PICASSO concepts, at which point SCHIELE MUELLER DEVELOPING KOKOSCHKA DÜRER MUNCH the detailed design phase FELIXMÜLLER BECKMANN PICASSO GERMAN commenced so 3D and MUELLER REVOLUTION graphic design could be DÜRER Expressionist prints MUNCH integrated with the object BECKMANN install. GERMAN GERMAN REVOLUTION THE REVOLUTION Until 31 August 2020 Expressionist prints Entrance Expressionist prints This extraordinary exhibition explores artists’ responses to the German Revolution of 1918-1919. Until 31 August 2020 Presenting works by stellar artists such as Edvard Munch, Egon Free entry, Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Kathe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, contributions welcome Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya and Paul Gauguin, the exhibition links the strong German tradition of graphic art with the social, political, sexual and moral struggles taking place at this turbulent time. Entry to the gallery is free, however if you enjoy German Revolution we’re asking you to pay what you think is appropriate to help create great exhibitions for everyone. Visitor contributions CONCEPTS... enable us to continue staging world class exhibitions for everyone. German Revolution is a touring exhibition from The Hunterian, University of Glasgow. National Museums Liverpool is an exempt charity under Schedule 3 of the Charities Act 2011 and is regulated by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Registered Office: Image: Käthe Kollwitz, Help Russia, (1921), lithograph on loan from the collection of Janet Beat World Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool, L3 8EN 1 GIVEN THE PREDOMINANTLY MONOCHROMATIC WORK ON DISPLAY, WE WERE KEEN TO INTRODUCE A BOLD, ingeniouscreative.com STRIKING COLOUR SCHEME TO THE PROJECT. Inspired by the graphic design movements of the time, GERMAN REVOLUTION typography was carefully chosen to convey the period PAINT SCHEME of the work, and also ensure maximum accessibility GREY RED and legibility. C0% M0% Y0% K20% C0% M100% Y100% K0% EQUIVALENT COLOURS EQUIVALENT COLOURS We propose painting the ‘chimney breasts’ in room 15 and 17 in the preferred red and white to mirror the main RAL 860-1 RAL 3028 With any art based show, we are always keen to ensure exhibition design. The typography would be realised by applied black vinyl. All other panels would be painted in the preferred grey. Dulux Trade Grey steel 300NN 72/000 Dulux Trade Poppy / carnival red 04 E 53 that the design intent and theme runs strongly throughout the project to create a memorable, cohesive visual language, that doesn’t overshadow the content of the exhibition, which is of course the most important thing. ingeniouscreative.com GERMAN REVOLUTION INTERPRETATON PANELS Introduction panel GERMAN REVOLUTION Expressionist prints Section panel Section panel New directions in printmaking 1900 –1925 LOVE Room 15 elev A Room 17 elev A Defeat in World War One, in November 1918, did not bring AND A BRIDGE peace to Germany. Instead the country saw continuing ANXIETY TO UTOPIA political unrest and mob violence. The Kaiser abdicated before the German surrender, as revolution spread. Some political stability returned in August 1919, with The fi gure subjects of much 19th-century painting In the period of the First World War, a surprising number of the establishment of the Weimar Republic, but Germany developed from traditional nude study in the art academies. Expressionist printmakers created idyllic fi gure subjects, remained vulnerable economically. Worse would follow with German Expressionist printmakers broke with the idealising especially happy couples. It is as if their thoughts turned to the rise of the National Socialists in 1933, which turned art of the past. They constructed psychological dramas from Utopia as a means of coping. This longing for innocence is 6 Germany against the world once more. real life. These were sometimes set against the background an important element of Expressionist culture. In Dresden of wartime experiences. In the work of artists such as Munch in 1905, a group of young artists formed a group called Die This exhibition looks at art from the German-speaking world and Schiele, love is an irresistible force. It has the power Brücke (the Bridge). Kirchner, Heckel, Pechstein and Schmidt- in this troubled period. It focuses on the prints that form one to sustain in diffi cult times, but is often a source of mental Rottluff sought respite from industrial life. They visited the of the most exciting developments of this crucial early phase torture. Works by leading Paris artists are included in this Moritzburg lakes, and Dangast, a North Sea village which of modern art. Because the print is a multiple, it is an art form section to show some of the foreign infl uences that were remained a simple, pious fi shing community. Some artists, to which artists turn to convey criticism and fantasy. The title promoted by Berlin’s very cosmopolitan art dealers. notably Pechstein and Nolde, even travelled to remote Pacifi c ‘German Revolution’ refl ects the political events. It also alerts islands to visit the communities whose art they had studied us to a revolution taking place among German artists. in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. A surprising number of important artists took up printmaking. GLAHA-57948 GLAHA-3875 IN 2018 16/7 GLAHA-51625 GLAHA-17985 GLAHA-21443 Several styles excited the Expressionists. One was a revival GLAHA-20658 GLAHA-21258 of interest in Gothic art from the 1400s and 1500s. Gothic sculptors had an unfl inching treatment of painful religious Point Sizes subjects. This was the authentic expression that artists sought as a counterbalance to Impressionism, with its Body copy: Soho Gothic Reg: 72pt on 93pt ‘superfi cial’ emphasis on light. Ceremonial and sacred objects from African and Oceanic societies were another important infl uence, as were international developments in painting, especially the intense colours of the French painters known VIEW B VIEW B as the ‘Fauves’, or ‘wild beasts’. GLAHA-21442 3298 GLAHA-55717 3046 VIEW C VIEW C LOAN 37 GLAHA-21233 1800 GLAHA-51351 2380 2730 Point Sizes VIEW A VIEW A GLAHA-4257 GLAHA-21257 GLAHA-44505 "Disparate Title: Soho Gothic Med: 120pt on 150pt 276 Matrimonial" 2528 GLAHA-17951 234 3666 GLAHA-17987 Body copy: Soho Gothic Reg: 72pt on 93pt 3862 IN 2018 16/6 VIEW D VIEW VIEW D VIEW GLAHA-51970 Love & Anxiety Interpretation Panel VIEW A VIEW A VIEW A ROOM 17 VIEW A VIEW A VIEW A Specification Address /Scheme Specification Address /Scheme Lady Lever Art Gallery Lady Lever Art Gallery VIEW B VIEW B VIEW B Title Text on View A: Title Text on View A: Temporary Exhibition Area Temporary Exhibition Area VIEW D VIEW D VIEW D Applied vinyl on painted wall Applied vinyl on painted wall ROOM 15 ROOM 17 VIEW B VIEW B VIEW B Intro Interpretation Panel: Section Interpretation Panel: VIEW D VIEW D VIEW D Title German Revolution Panel Interpretation Title German Revolution GLAHA-21253 GLAHA-21243 GLAHA-55716