Constructing the World: Art and Economy

Ten years after the peak of the global financial crisis in 2008, which profoundly shook the economic systems of America and Europe and had a lasting effect on present-day life, this topical exhibition is the first to illustrate the economy’s dramatic influence on art and to make global comparisons, demonstrating these in an analysis of two separate eras. Economic phenomena in the classical modernism of the 1920s and 30s are not only explored by focusing on art from the German Weimar Republic, the Soviet Union, and the United States, but also juxtaposed with artists of the present day. With works loaned from international collections by Otto Dix, Alexander Rodchenko, Georgia O'Keefe, and Charles Sheeler, among others. The estate of Allan Sekula (USA), Andreas Siekmann (Germany), Thomas Hirschhorn (Switzerland), Alicja Kwade (Germany/Poland), Jeremy Deller (UK), Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico), Harun Farocki (Germany), and Antje Ehmann (Germany) have been invited.

Curatorial team: Dr. Eckhart Gillen (Berlin), Dr. Ulrike Lorenz, Dr. Sebastian Baden
Project Lead: Dr. Inge Herold, Assistence: Lisa Valentina Riedel, M. A. mult., Elisabeth Bohnet, M.A.