Regardless of whether your name is Máxima and you are the queen of the Netherlands or a West German painter in the 1980s, when you put something into the world that looks just a little bit like a swastika, it evokes strong associations. For the painters of the Nieuwe Wilden (New Savages), those hefty associations were precisely the goal. Whether it was to mocking art itself, humour, or yes, even Hitler.
The poster for the exhibit Nieuwe Wilden at the Groninger Museum uses a painting by Jiří Georg Dokoupil that features the words ‘sex, drugs and rock-n-roll’. A small taste of the art on display at the exhibit: it doesn’t shy away from taboos. Perhaps the most severe is the room dedicated to the Am Moritzplatz gallery. There is more than just life-size nudity on display: it’s upside-down, like cattle for slaughter, in Luciano Castelli's work Salomé’s KaDeWe (see photo above). Or it’s scattered here and there, like in the piece Salomé's Babylon.
It doesn’t shy away from taboos
Curator Mariëtta Jansen (pictured above) tells us that there are a number of sexually oriented works among them, such as the painting Der Große Dusche (Rainer Fetting), which echoes a theme of homosexuality, but where you could also see a reference to the gas chambers of World War II.
That German symbolism cannot be ignored. The theme recurs everywhere, sometimes subtly, but most often glaringly. The Berlin Wall, painted in fierce colour contrast. Symbols that indicate dichotomy, such as the hammer and sickle in Schöner Wohnen (Nomenklatura) by Milan Kunc. Swastikas (Albert Oehlen) or a portrait of Hitler (Ina Barfuss).
There is a lot to see at Nieuwe Wilden: large formats, lots of colour, fierce brushstrokes and intense subject matter. The remarkable thing is that these works were not even created that long ago, but we don't know that much about them. De Fundatie in Zwolle is hosting an exhibit on expressionism in the early 20th century: Wilden. According to Jansen, one should not stop there, but rather continue to Groningen. This will allow you to move along "with time" so to speak, and by seeing both exhibits, you can actually get a window into the Zeitgeist.
Painting is not dead
Nieuwe Wilden is basically the same as an earlier exhibit in Frankfurt, but supplemented with works from the Groninger Museum collection. In the 1980s, the director at the time, Frans Haks, was one of the first in the Netherlands to start collecting these works on a large scale. When these works were first exhibited, reactions were somewhat measured at best. NRC even spoke of a ‘hotchpotch that hurts the eyes’ and doubted whether the Groninger Museum could continue to offer quality content. An article in De Telegraaf in 1981 read, ‘Fortunately, these painters have no ideology, so the crude artillery they employ only threatens sensitive retinas’. The papers were not really shocked, but they found it hard to see the value in it.
Now it’s 30 years later, and there’s a little distance between us and the work. The curator doesn't know at all how people will respond now and is a little nervous about it. In any case, this exhibit proved that painting is not dead. And in another 20 years? I’m sure that we’ll have even newer Nieuwe Wilden then.
Nieuwe Wilden will be on display at the Groninger Museum until 23 October 2016.
Text: Gerdine Kruizinga
Images of the opening: Sander van der Bij
Image poster: Jiří Georg Dokoupil, Ohne Titel/Untitled, 1984.