EXPRESSIVE! is impressive in Riehen

"Sitting girl" by Ernest Ludwig Kirchner is just one painting on show at the Fondation Beyeler. Fondation Beyeler/The Minneapolis Institute of Arts

The Fondation Beyeler has used the adjective "expressive" as the title for its stunning exhibition devoted to expressionism, a key movement in 20th century art.

It has transformed a limited chapter in art history (1905-1914) into a fundamental theme running through the past 100 years.

“´EXPRESSIVE!’ combines the old with the new, which is a trademark of the Foundation Beyeler,” curator Markus Brüderlin told swissinfo.

“The old must be acknowledged as a yardstick for the new but the classical also benefits from the challenge posed by the contemporary.”

And what a broad sweep the exhibition takes, beginning with paintings by the forefathers of Expressionism – El Greco, Van Gogh and Gauguin – and going all the way to the neo-expressionists of recent times.

It’s a journey which Fondation Beyeler has embarked on thanks to generous loans from European and US museums of familiar and famous works by leading 20th masters such as Picasso, Matisse and Klee.

Flash in the pan

That this key movement is underrepresented in its impressive permanent collection is a peculiarity of the Fondation Beyeler.

“The gaps reflect a long-held scepticism of expressionism as a flash in the pan phenomenon,” Brüderlin told swissinfo.

But he added that despite the scepticism, the foundation has envisaged an exhibition on “this brief but passionate chapter in modern art” ever since its inauguration at Riehen near Basel in 1996.

The upper case letters – and exclamation mark of the title EXPRESSIVE! – are fully justified in the exhibition, which has the power to surprise and delight as visitors take in paintings of such artists’ groups as the “Fauves”, “Die Brücke” and “Der Blaue Reiter” – and onwards to the present day.

“The adjective has enabled us to include all the artists who paint in this background of expressive art,” says Brüderlin. “It is a very wide frame.”

Topical

On a topical note, one of the many surprises is in the spacious entrance hall, where a huge reproduction of Picasso’s antiwar masterpiece “Guernica” is hanging.

Referring to the fighting in Iraq, Brüderlin said the picture was included in order “to show that art also has the power to comment on, rather than influence, politics.”

“Guernica” was inspired by the Nazi bombing of a small Spanish town in 1937.

EXPRESSIVE! is at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen until August 10.

swissinfo, Richard Dawson

In brief

Expressionism as such was a brief chapter in art history, lasting from 1905 until 1914.

It began as a German artists’ group known as “Die Brücke”, but its forefathers were El Greco, Van Gogh and Gauguin.

EXPRESSIVE! consists of some 200 paintings, sculptures and installations, most of them on loan from US and European public and private collections.

The exhibition title enabled the Fondation Beyeler to include all major artists who painted in the background of expressive art.