Shape and Meaning

The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Five educational lectures by Mariano Akerman


German Art. The contribution of German artists and their colleagues working in Germany encompasses the development of the print as an artistic means in its own right (Albrecht Dürer), outstanding formulations concerning the Grotesque (aesthetical category), the subjective approach of Romanticism, fusing the visible with the spiritual (Caspar David Friedrich), incursions in Impressionism (Max Liebermann) and Jugendstil (Max Laeuger and Ephraim Moses Lilien), the conjunction of Primitivism and the Soul (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rotluff), the simplification of the image leading to abstraction in 20th century art (Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky), sharp criticism of the bourgeoisie and the aftermath of WWI (Otto Dix and Georg Grosz), the exploration of the absurd and the apparently irrational nature of dreams (Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim), and a logical amalgamation of the arts and crafts to supply normative archetypes to the industry as developed in the Bauhaus (Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe).
Problematic is the effect of totalitarianism on German Art, while luminous are the contributions of a number of German independent artists during WWII (Kollwitz, Heartfield, Weber) and other post-war painters such as and Anselm Kiefer.
Mariano Akerman explores these and several other aspects of modern art while considering the historical context of a select group of German masterpieces. As a whole, Akerman’s collection of images underlines how diverse and meaningful German Art is.



Mariano Akerman. Born in Buenos Aires, Akerman studied at the School of Architecture of Universidad de Belgrano (Argentina), completing his education with a prized graduation project on the limits and space in modern architecture (1987).
Abroad from 1991, he received a full British Council Grant and researched the visual imagery of Francis Bacon (1995) and the architectural projects of Louis I. Kahn (1997). A professional art historian (Suma cum Laude, 1999), he contributes regularly to Knol and the Encyclopédie Larousse since 2009.
In Asia, Akerman developed the educational series of lectures From Van Eyck to Magritte (2005), Arte Argentino (2006), In the Spirit of Linnaeus (2007), Raisons d’être—Art, Freedom and Modernity (2008-10), and German Art, Its Peculiarities and Transformations (2010; see review by Ishrat Hyatt).
Specializing in visual communication, architect and art historian Mariano Akerman is an experienced educator. He gives lectures at renowned institutions such as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Argentina, the National Museum of the Philippines and the National College of Arts in Lahore. Only in Pakistan, he has given more than twenty lectures ad honorem (Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, 2008-10).
An artist himself, Akerman exhibits his paintings and collages since 1979 onwards. Mariano Akerman has received more than twelve major international prizes.


Terminology
Deutsche Kunst – German art
Kunstgeschichte – Art History
Druck – Print
Gesamtkunstwerk – A total, all-encompassing artwork
Traumwerk – Dreamwork
Das Groteske – The grotesque
Gemütlich – Familiar, cosy, homely
Lebensangst – Fear of life
Knorpelornamentik – Gristly, cartilaginous ornament
Jugendstil – Art nouveau, Modernism
Die Brücke – The Bridge
Der Blaue Reiter – The Blue Rider
Neue Sachlichkeit – New Objectivity
Entartete „Kunst” - ‘Degenerate’ [Modern] Art
Schwarze milch – Black milk
Einfühlung – Empathy



Four quotations

• I belong to those who from darkness to light aspire. Goethe (1749-1832)

• Nobody will give you freedom. You have to take it. Meret Oppenheim (1913-85)

It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.
It is not the houses. It is the space between the houses.
It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist. [...] It is not what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.
[...] The workers are dismantling the houses of the dead. [...]
It is not what he wants to know.
It is what he wants not to know.
It is not what they say.
It is what they do not say.
James Fenton, A German Requiem, 1981

• Black milk of dawn we drink it at sunset we drink it at noon and in the morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink it [...] / Your golden hair Margarete / Your ashen hair Shulamith. Paul Celan, Todesfuge (Death Fugue), 1947-48


MEDIEVAL ART. Conrad von Megenberg, Stephan Lochner, Matthis Grünewald, RENAISSANCE and BAROQUE ART, Albrecht Dürer, Jakob Bink, Hans Holbein, Pieter Paul Rubens, Christoph Jamnitzer, Justus Junker, Balthasar Küchler, Johann Heinrich Keller, Friedrich Unteutsch, Simon Cammermeir, Joahnn Heinrich Keller, Johann Esaias Nilson, ROMANTICISM. Philipp Otto Runge, Jeremias Wachsmuth, Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Rudolf Bühlmann, REALISM, Karl Eduard Biermann, IMPRESSIONISM, Max Liebermann, Lesser Ury, SYMBOLISM, Carl Strathmann, JUGENDSTIL, Max Laueger, Ephraim Moses Lilien, EXPRESSIONISM, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, Gabrielle Münter, Ludwig Meidner, NEUE SACHLICHKEIT, Otto Dix, George Grosz, DADA and SURREALISM, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Meret Oppenheim, Hans Arp, Max Ernst, BAUHAUS, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, RESISTANCE ART, Karl Schwesig, John Heartfield [Helmut Herzfeld], Käthe Kollwitz, POST-WAR ART, Andreas Paul Weber, Ernst Kahl, Alfred Wols, Hans Hartung, Thomas Grunfeld, Anselm Kiefer.



The Shape and Meaning Lectures Program on the German Contribution to the Visual Arts
1. Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art
Islamabad College for Girls, 23 November 2010
2. The Grotesque in German Art. Its Nature, Transformations and Importance in Aesthetics
Islamabad College for Girls, 8 December 2010
3. Modern Art
Post-Graduate College for Women, Rawalpindi, 9 December 2010
4. The Bible and the Visual Arts
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 10 December 2010
5. Bible-inspired Symbolism in German Art
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 14 December 2010

Event brochure, November 2010

Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Educational lectures and workshop program
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, November-December 2010


1. Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art
Islamabad College for Girls, 23 November 2010
400 students


2. The Grotesque in German Art. Its Nature, Transformations and Importance
Islamabad College for Girls, 8 December 2010
380 students


3. Modern Art
Post-Graduate College for Women, Rawalpindi, 9 December 2010
180 students


4. The Bible and the Visual Arts
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 10 December 2010
152 students


5. Bible-inspired Symbolism in German Art
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 14 December 2010
160 students


Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts - Five Educational Lectures by Mariano Akerman, German Embassy Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Education & Culture

• Selected masterpieces at the German Art Gallery


Deutsche Kunst - Form und Bedeutung. Eine Vorlesungsreihe von Mariano Akerman, Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Kulturelle Beziehungen (Andreas Dauth); Mariano Akerman an der Deutschen Botschaft.