In its exhibition entitled “Art Nouveau. The Great Utopian Vision”, the MK&G, accompanied by a newly designed presentation of its existing Art Nouveau Collection, retraces an era which produced so much more than whimsically playful ornamentation. Art Nouveau defined itself via reform movements, visions and Utopian dreams aimed at renewing society. The special exhibition throws light on this cultural and historical background and development, drawing together the ideas linking Karl Marx‘s “Das Kapital” and Peter Behrens’s salon grand piano with symbols quoted from Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra”. It shows reform movement robes, a solar bath for sun-worshippers, photographs of nudists playing sports in the open air or Loïe Fuller’s celebrated light dances. The arts take up the revolutionary changes affecting the private and social life of modern man, sketch new models for living and experiment with technical innovations. Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch and Alfons Mucha reflect the many-facetted perceptions projected onto women. Ferdinand Hodler, Paula Modersohn-Becker focus on the child. And a constantly recurring source of inspiration is nature, especially in the applied arts. Art Nouveau also marks a hiatus for the museums of arts and crafts, which had up to then only shown examples from history. This is the period when they also begin to collect contemporary art.  The new design of the Art Nouveau collection of the MK&G, today almost unparalleled, takes its cue from the first presentation which its founder Justus Brinckmann compiled in 1900 with the objects he had purchased at the Paris World Exhibition. In addition, with furniture and room ensembles by, among others, Henry van de Velde, Richard Riemerschmid, Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Carlo Bugatti, it illustrates the wide spectrum of aesthetic conceptions and formal language at the beginning of the 20th century. The project shows more than 350 works in all, including painting, sculpture, prints, photography, drawings, ceramics, glass art, book art, fashion, textile art, posters, historical films, scientific and medical-technical apparatus and models.

Artists: Emile Bernard, Edward Burne-Jones, Peter Behrens, Carlo Bugatti, Jules Chéret, Carl Otto Czeschka, Carl Fabergé, Mariano Fortuny, Loïe Fuller, Emile Gallé, Paul Gauguin, Karl Gräser, Eugène Grasset, Josef Hoffmann, Gustav  Klimt, Fernand Khnopff, René Lalique, Richard Luksch, Elena Luksch-Makowsky, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Madame D`Ora, Louis Majorelle, Paula Modersohn-Becker, William Morris, Alfons Mucha, Edvard Munch, Richard  Riemerschmid, August Rodin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Louis C. Tiffany, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henry van de Velde  and many others.

The special exhibition has been made possible by funds generously provided by the Ausstellungsfonds der Freien und  Hansestadt Hamburg, the Hubertus Wald Stiftung and the Justus Brinckmann Gesellschaft, and was organized in cooperation with the Hamburger Kunsthalle. The digital contents were made possible by the IT-Globalfonds der Freien und  Hansestadt Hamburg. The new adaptation of Loïe Fuller‘s serpentine dance is promoted by TANZFONDS ERBE – an  initiative of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

We would like to thank here our room patrons Jutta and Joachim von Berenberg-Consbruch, Holger and Mara Cassens  Stiftung, Gabriele and Dr. Peter von Foerster, Edgar E. Nordmann and Christa and Nikolaus W. Schües for their support for the new design of the Art Nouveau Collection. The catalogue received support from Edgar E. Nordmann.