Ausstellungseröffnung: Chagall

Marc Chagall (1887 - 1985) is one of the most fascinating artists of modernism. The exhibition at the K20 of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, which is being organized in cooperation with the Albertina in Vienna, is a monographic exhibition on the work of the Russian-French painter. Chagall grew up in the small town of Vitebsk (in present-day Belarus) as the eldest child of an Orthodox Jewish family and reflected on his origins throughout his life. His paintings tell of everyday life and customs, but also of exclusion and pogroms. They deal with the trauma of persecution, but also with the dream of a better life.

His fantastically poetic pictorial worlds are characterized by bright, intense colours, and his motifs remain enigmatic to this day. On the 40th anniversary of the Russian-French painter's death, the exhibition comprises around 120 works from all creative phases. One focus is on the early works created between 1910 and 1923. As a young artist in Paris, Chagall experimented with Fauvism and Cubism and combined the new stylistic tendencies with Jewish motifs and Russian folklore. This was unique in his time and made him the "wunderkind of modernism". The exhibition not only reveals the painterly influences on Chagall's early work. The less well-known dark and socially critical side of the artist, which has not lost its relevance to this day, can also be discovered.

The exhibition is a cooperation between the ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna, and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf.