Kairos Gallery Opening

• The Kairos Gallery presents: Was God Dead? 
• Opening reception & meet exhibit owner Sandra Bowden
• Sunday December 1st after services
• Refreshments will be served
• Exhibit closes February 23

About the Exhibit:
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the writings of the atheistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche were a powerful inspiration for the artistic and literary avant-garde communities in Berlin, Dresden, and Munich. His exuberant affirmation of the “vital forces” of life, anti-authoritarian iconoclasm, and withering condemnation of Christianity inspired artists and writers in their search for a new future that would liberate humanity from the suffocating aesthetic, cultural, political, and religious conventions derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Yet, why does biblical imagery saturate Expressionist literature and the visual arts? Was God Dead? Biblical Imagination in German Expressionist Prints explores this question through a broad survey of nearly fifty works from such important artists as Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Kathë Kollwitz, Otto Dix, Christian Rohlfs, Schmidt-Rottloff, Vassily Kandinsky, and Edvard Munch, among many other important representatives of Expressionism, including key members of the influential avant-garde movements Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter.

Was God Dead? demonstrates the important role that Biblical imagery played in the German Expressionists’ subject matter, which deepened the impact of their innovations in medium and form.

The exhibition shows the importance of printmaking for the German Expressionists, a medium that had fallen out of favor in advanced artistic circles by the end of the nineteenth century. But, as Ernst Kirchner exclaimed, “There is no better place to get to know an artist than in his graphic work.” Not only was it an intimate and powerful aesthetic medium, printmaking also connected the artists to a distinguished tradition in German art, evidenced by the work of Lucas Cranach, Martin Schongauer, and most importantly, Albrecht Dürer (included in the exhibition). The legacy of the medium was not merely an artistic one, but had revolutionary resonances with the Protestant Reformation, which Luther and Cranach waged through the printing press.

Was God dead? also shows the formal and stylistic impact of native German folk traditions as well as African tribal artifacts (included in the exhibition). The German Expressionists’ interest in appropriating a so-called “primitive” aesthetic was a means to tap into what they hoped was a deeper well of spirituality, feeling, and creative freedom than offered by traditional European aesthetics and culture as preserved by the official art of the academies.

Was God Dead? reveals the continued potential of the Judeo-Christian tradition to influence generations of modern and avant-garde artists. The Bible gave form and expression to the intensity of modern experience, even an experience that, with the catastrophe of the First World War, transformed euphoric optimism into humanity’s potential into the darkest nihilistic despair. These prints show that for the German Expressionists, God was very much alive.