PRESS KIT CONTACTS PRESS RELATIONS CARACAS RP Hélène VAN DEN WILDENBERG [email protected] T. +32 (0)4 349 14 41 Gsm +32 (0)495 22 07 92 Juliette PICRY Press Secretary for the City of Mons T. +32 (0)65 40 59 71 Gsm +32 (0)497 970 873 [email protected] Géraldine SIMONET PR Manager T. +32 (0)65 40 51 72 Gsm +32 (0)473 604 994 [email protected] ORGANISED BY THE EXHIBITION DEPARTMENT OF THE MONS MUSEUM NETWORK, SUPPORTED BY THE WALLONIA-BRUSSELS FEDERATION. CONTENTS SIGNS OF THE TIMES Press release / PAGE 05 — The exhibition / PAGE 05 — The exhibition’s artists / PAGE 06 — The curator / PAGE 06 — The catalogue / PAGE 06 — Visuals available to the press / PAGE 07 ThE BATTLE OF MONS Press release / PAGE 10 — Different themes in the exhibition / PAGE 10 — The curator / PAGE 11 — The catalogue / PAGE 11 — Visuals available to the press / PAGE 12 FRITZ HABER Press release / PAGE 14 — The exhibition / PAGE 14 — David Vandermeulen / PAGE 15 — Fritz Haber / PAGE 15 — Visuals available to the press / PAGE 16 ThE FIRST AND THE LASt / PAGE 17 PRACTICAL DETAILS / PAGE 17 AcTIVITIES CONNECTED TO THE EXHIBITIONS / PAGE 17 PRESS KIT 03 CURATOR EXHIBITION COORDINATION SIGNS OF Nikola Doll Alice Cantigniau T. 065 40.53.08 THE TIMES [email protected] Odile Moreau VISIONARY ART T. 065 40.53.05 FROM PRE-1914 [email protected] PRESS RELEASE But we were talking about the Belle Époque! A period marked by dazzling in no small part, by the collapse of traditional values, is one of the roots of social, technological, economic and political progress, brought to an abrupt modern art. Visions of fear, threats, and the apocalypse rub shoulders with end on 4 August 2014. But how could we ever get to that point? This exhibi- projects looking at utopic, idyllic worlds. Interpreted today as Signs of the tion, entitled Signs of the times attempts to explore the widespread sense times, above all these pieces bear witness to a world in a state of revolution, of restlessness that clearly manifested itself in the art scene in the pre-war one that we attempt to understand with the benefit of hindsight as visionary period. The upheaval of day-to-day habits unleashed a range of contradictory images of a gloomy future. emotions: fear and hope, uncertainty and dreams, intoxication and aspiration. The 150 pieces in this exhibition include paintings, sculptures, graphic pieces More than forty artists from 6 different European countries have been and photographs by German, French, Belgian, Swiss and Austrian artists from brought together to look at themes that help us analyse the boundaries major international collections: Georges Minne, Auguste Rodin, Edvard Munch, and the bridges between different artistic trends such as naturalism, sym- Félicien Rops and Alfred Kubin as well as Léon Spillaert, Fernand Khnopff, bolism and expressionism. Together, they reveal the signature, reflected in Arnold Schönberg, James Ensor, and Ludwig Meidner to name but a few… visual arts, of a period filled with uncertainty. This state of crisis produced, The darkest pages of the Belle Époque are revealed as the exhibition goes on. ThE EXHIBITION Periods of upheaval have always generated new waves of artistic trends. 3. Half-man – half-animal With the benefit of hindsight, we can rediscover a number of masterpieces In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the origin of the species by means of and see them as the reflection of a period of uncertainty. The 6 themes natural selection. No theory other than that of Evolution has revolutionised tackled in this exhibition are: science to this extent, shaking the foundations of social hierarchies. In around 1900, the notion of “fighting for survival” is established in the consciousness 1. Signs of the times of the European bourgeoisie. The visitor is immediately confronted by a huge wall of more than 250 photo- graphs on a glass background from the Mundaneum’s image collections. Most Artists such as Félicien Rops, Edvard Munch and Alfred Kubin leaned of these translucent images date back to the beginning of the 20th century. towards Darwin’s theories. Their representations of mixed beings, half-man, They have been put together to create a panorama that reveals a whole half-animal, defined the boundaries ofdecadence and bear witness to the new world: illustrations of technical advances, economic riches and mass rocky hierarchy in the relationship between men and women. consumption, alongside representations of how cities have changed, to the detriment of nature. The whole thing creates a kaleidoscopic overview of 4. State of emergency a world undergoing major changes. The place of the individual can only be The demographic growth seen in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century turned upside down faced with so many changes in such a short period. triggered new fears. The artistic output of James Ensor and Ludwig Meidner illustrate this individual awareness, intensified by the standardisation trig- 2. Homo sacer gered by mass culture. Visual arts became virulent and incisive. Some Compassion, this word, with Christian connotations, goes perfectly with paintings take the form of allegories. Others, like those by Henri de Groux, the 19th century as it sums up the social concerns of the burgeoning middle are visions of a social apocalypse. These works of art often have an indefinable class. Clearly this period did not invent the concept, but it did give it an extra style, giving a sense, not without irony, of a wretched, almost paranormal element, tinged with suffering and despair. The depictions of women and destiny. Idealistic or prophetic? That is the question that underlies our take children at work have become symbols of human exploitation in a century on these works of art. overcome with rampant industrialisation. These works of art become the precursors of a precarious humanity. PRESS KIT 05 5. “I” is someone else 6. Out of the ordinary A sense of languid unease took possession of humanity at the beginning The ideal of modernity in the guise of technical progress was by no means of the 20th century. Artists began to understand reality from the starting one that everybody shared. Indeed, criticism blossomed faced with a point of their own subjectivity. Influenced by Sigmund Freud’s psychoa- certain industrial culture that saw nature as an object to be fashioned nalysis method, artists released the irrational from a world of seemingly to the service of mankind. For artists like Wilhelm Diefenbach and Gusto well-ordered objects. They saw the artistic process as the expression of Gräser, the city, the nation and technical advances represented a threat a psychological density that was starting to blossom in a conventional to humanity. In their eyes, the choice of a different life was possible. social setting. So all of a sudden the barren landscapes of Degouve de So the artist became the creator of parallel universes or seemingly perfect Nuncques or the lifeless interiors of Xavier Mellery can resonate with technical systems. Albert Trachsel, for example, came up with architectural the enigmatic representations of Schönberg; each one has his own way models for the ideal humanist society. Somewhere between science fiction of highlighting what some call the “hidden trapdoors of the soul”. and post-Romanticism, the works of art express the dream of a perfect union between mankind and the cosmos, while a whole other reality is coming into existence. THE EXHIBITIOn’S ARTISTS Max Beckmann, Cécile Douard, William Degouve de Nuncques, Wilhelm Diefenbach, Louis Mascré, Ludwig Meidner, George Méliès, Xavier Mellery, Constantin Meunier, Henry Dunant, James Ensor, Gusto Gräser, Otto Greiner, Otto Gutfreund, Henry Georges Minne, Wilhelm Morgner, Edvard Munch, Auguste Rodin, Félicien Rops, de Groux, Wenzel Hablik, Hugo Höppener (Fidus), Ludwig von Hofmann, Fernand Arnold Schönberg, Paul Sérusier, Max Slevogt, Léon Spilliaert, Jakob Steinhardt, Khnopff, Käthe Kollwitz, Alfred Kubin, Auguste Levêque, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Felix Vallotton, Albert Weisgerber, H.G. Wells, Philippe Wolfers, Ossip Zadkine. ThE CURATOR ThE CATALOGUE Nikola Doll is an exhibition curator, researcher and lecturer. She is currently involved in research with the prestigious group Bild – Wissen – Gestaltung / The exhibition is accompanied by a 144-page illustrated book containing 4 essays image – knowledge – Gestaltung, at the Humboldt University of Berlin. by Nikola Doll, Denis Laoureux, Sabine Faster and Jörg Templer, a catalogue with 6 themed chapters written by Nikola Doll, a chronology of the successive crises Her fields of research essentially focus on the following themes: in Europe between 1789 and 1914 by Felix Jäger, a list of the works of art on display and a selective bibliography. – Fine art in the 19th and 20th centuries – Arts and cultural policy Contents Editorial / Collège communal de la Ville de Mons – History and history of art Foreword / Xavier Roland – Head of the Pôle Muséal – Fine art and architecture in National Socialist Germany Essays and the Democratic Republic of Germany I – Introduction / Nikola Doll (Humboldt University of Berlin) II – The catastrophes and their origins in images / Jörg Templer (Humboldt – Exhibition narratives and posters University of Berlin) III – See Sedan, catch a glimpse of Verdun: the spectre of disaster in fin She has already been the curator of a number of exhibitions including: de siècle Belgium / Denis Laoureux (Université Libre de Bruxelles) IV – On the borders: artistic concepts and the birth of psychiatry / Sabine Faster – Weltwissen. 300 Jahre Wissenschaften in Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin 2010/11. Catalogue Chapter I – Signs – Kunst und Propaganda im Streit der Nationen, Deutsches Historisches Chapter II – Homo Sacer Museum Berlin, Berlin 2007. Chapter III – Half-man – half-animal – As well as other exhibitions for the Humboldt University of Berlin, Chapter IV – State of emergency Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Chapter V – “I” is someone else Deutschland, Bonn.