Ausstellungseröffnung: PARA-MODERNE. Lebensreformen ab 1900

In the organizer's words:

Be free!
Freedom from the constraints of bourgeois life, capitalism and industrial society - that was the dream of many around 1900. The focus was on nature, peace, health, physical culture and spirituality. Art Nouveau and Expressionism brought new impulses to art and design.

The exhibition sheds light on these ideals as well as the aberrations of individual reformers and draws a connection to the American counter-culture and flower power movement.

CLIMATE COMES!
The Bundeskunsthalle has succeeded in bringing Gustav Klimt's masterpiece from the Vienna Theater Museum to Bonn. With NUDA VERITAS (1899), Klimt rigorously defied the established norms of art.

We cordially invite you to the opening of the exhibition:

PARA-MODERNE
Life Reforms from 1900 onwards
on Thursday, April 10, 7 p.m.
Free admission.

The speakers will be

EVA KRAUS
Director of the Bundeskunsthalle

JOHANNA ADAM
curator

ROBERT EIKMEYER
curator

Followed by a tour of the exhibition

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Be free! From the constraints of bourgeois life, capitalism and industrial society. This was the dream of many young people around 1900 - and they made plans to get out: some of them started an alternative life in reform colonies away from the cities. A return to nature and a life in peace were at the center of these plans, as well as health, physical culture and spirituality - a new attitude to life that was to find a suitable aesthetic.

In art and design, Art Nouveau and Expressionism brought new creative impulses. The movement also found expression in everyday culture: a vegetarian diet, the rejection of bourgeois marriage and old gender roles, naturism, alternative education and, last but not least, the media with which all of this could be propagated. Where did the new perspectives lead and which ideas do we recognize in the zeitgeist today? The exhibition sheds light on the ideals of the early life reform movements, but also on individual reformers who elevated their esoteric world view and idealization of the "healthy" body to racist and nationalist ideologies.

In addition to the developments in Europe, it is above all the links to American counter-culture and the flower power movement that the exhibition presents comprehensively for the first time.

GUSTAV KLIMT'S MASTERPIECE IS COMING!
For the exhibition, the Bundeskunsthalle has succeeded in borrowing a major work by Gustav Klimt from the Vienna Theater Museum. With his NUDA VERITAS (1899), Klimt rigorously defied the established norms of art. The combination of image and writing, the symbolist depiction and the embedding of the motifs in an ornamental design - all this was a rejection of the prevailing academicism. Among other things, the exhibition focuses on the close connection between Art Nouveau art and the ideas of the Life Reform movement.

PARA-FASHION
Life reforms from 1900
April 11 to August 10, 2025
Federal Art Gallery, Bonn