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Editor鈥檚 note: 鈥淢odern Art and Politics in Germany, 1910鈥�1945鈥� contains historical artworks that may include imagery that is disturbing to some readers.

How did German artists respond to the rise of fascism? That鈥檚 the question at the heart of 鈥淢odern Art and Politics in Germany, 1910鈥�1945,鈥� a traveling show that鈥檚 currently on view at the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum.

Organized by the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 鈥淢odern Art and Politics鈥� is a magisterial presentation of rarely seen masterworks of the modern era. Of the 72 pieces in the show, only five have been seen in North America in the past 20 years. So, it鈥檚 unlikely they will all be brought together in sa国际传媒官网网页入口 again anytime soon. It鈥檚 a must-see show for that reason alone.

Not all of the works are 鈥渕odern鈥� in the stylistic sense. Rather, their stylistic diversity reflects the larger social, aesthetic and political divisions of that turbulent era.

As I walked through the show, I thought about my former literature professor, Justus Rosenberg, who died in 2021 at the age of 100. As a teenager, he had joined the French Resistance and personally rescued the writers Heinrich Mann (brother of Thomas Mann) and Franz Werfel from Nazi-occupied France. His comrades rescued the artists Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall and Andr茅 Breton, among others. That generation of writers and artists is almost completely gone now. But as long as their books and artworks remain with us, they continue to teach from beyond the grave.

Fascism did not descend on Germany overnight like a scene change in a play. A timeline in the exhibition catalog details a series of gradual social and political changes as they affected the German art world, from a seemingly humorous polemic against modern art by a conservative art critic in 1921 to the firing of a slew of art professors and museum directors in 1933 to a series of decrees in 1935 which placed all museums under the supervision of government officials. And things just got worse from there.

Artists, meanwhile, kept making art.

George Grosz鈥檚 鈥淧illars of Society鈥� (1926) is one of the most explicitly antifascist paintings in the show. Depicting a right-wing member of the German Parliament with a steaming pile of poop for brains, it still has the ability to shock and amuse a century later. Many of Grosz鈥檚 other works were destroyed by government agents who raided his studio the day after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor. Grosz, meanwhile, had already fled to the United States.

Other artists, like Paul Klee, avoided political themes, focusing their attention instead on form and color. But the apolitical nature of Klee鈥檚 art didn鈥檛 stop the Nazis from ruthlessly mocking it as 鈥渋nsane childish scrawling鈥� and confiscating over 130 of his works, some of which they destroyed. When you see Klee鈥檚 paintings in person, it鈥檚 clear that his technique is gentle. He slowly builds up color in layers. His edges are soft. His contrasts are muted. Nothing is 鈥渟crawled.鈥�

Nazi anti-art propaganda only works if you don鈥檛 spend more than a few seconds looking at the art in question. And the critiques they leveled against artists like Klee were not logically consistent. One moment they鈥檙e attacking an artist for being childish and stupid, the next for being overly intellectual.

Some career-minded artists looked for ways to ingratiate themselves to the new regime, with mixed results. The left-wing artist Franz Radziwill tried to adapt his 鈥渘ew objectivity鈥� style to Nazi-approved themes and even joined the Nazi party in 1933. His work was nevertheless denounced as 鈥渄egenerate鈥� in the infamous 鈥淓ntartete Kunst (Degenerate Art)鈥� exhibition of 1937. But he remained in Germany and kept painting. A couple years later the Nazis bought some of his art. Then, they denounced him again.

Radziwill鈥檚 surrealistic war painting, 鈥淔landers (Where to in this World?),鈥� which he worked on for a full decade (1940鈥�1950), is a wild mishmash of war planes, unicorns and christomorphic wraiths floating through a crack in the space-time continuum. Like 鈥淪laughterhouse Five鈥� 鈥� Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 semi-autobiographical World War II novel involving time travel and space aliens 鈥� 鈥淔landers鈥� is the product of a war-haunted mind reaching beyond the terrestrial to explain the unfathomable. Would I have unfriended Radziwill for aligning himself with the Nazis if we had been contemporaries? Absolutely. But 鈥淔landers鈥� is a terrific painting, nonetheless.

One of the most groundbreaking artists in the show, I鈥檓 sorry to say, is Emil Nolde, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite through and through. His highly physical brushwork and acid colors could easily be mistaken for the work of a young artist today. He鈥檚 proof that bad people sometimes make good art.

Should he be canceled for his despicable beliefs, his paintings confined to storage or deaccessioned from museums? I don鈥檛 think so. And while I can certainly understand why some viewers might feel uneasy about the inclusion of pro-fascist artists in 鈥淢odern Art and Politics,鈥� I strongly endorse this risky curatorial move. First, it gives a much fuller picture of the art scene of the time, which was really several scenes in one. Only by experiencing the plethora of simultaneous, competing styles and ideologies can we begin to imagine the complexity and confusion of those fraught times over and against the fiction of a simple, linear art historical narrative.

Second, the inclusion of both fascist and anti-fascist art helps dispel the myth that politics and aesthetics go hand in hand. You really can鈥檛 tell who鈥檚 who, politically, just by looking at their art, unless you happen to already recognize every artist, and you know their biographies. Some left-wing artists, such as Franz Lenk, made sterile, academic-looking, frankly conservative still-life paintings, while right-wing artists such as Nolde were engaged in radical visual experimentation.

The fact is, the Nazis didn鈥檛 really know what to do with expressionism. Some pro-fascist curators and artists, including Nolde, tried to present the movement as uniquely and authentically 鈥淕erman,鈥� a patriotic revival of folk art traditions and so on. But Hitler personally disliked their 鈥渦nnatural鈥� colors and distorted forms. Besides, it was hard for the regime to condemn left-leaning artists as 鈥渄egenerate鈥� on stylistic grounds without also condemning the work of right-wing artists who painted similarly.

And then there鈥檚 the strange case of Rudolf Belling. One of his sculptures was selected for the 鈥淕reat German Art Exhibition鈥� of 1937, a Nazi-organized museum exhibition meant to showcase what the regime considered the 鈥渉ealthiest鈥� examples of patriotic German art. But the government鈥檚 propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, had chosen another of Belling鈥檚 sculptures for the 鈥淒egenerate Art鈥� exhibition, whose purpose was to ridicule and denounce modernism. The two shows ended up happening at the same time in the same city 鈥� Munich 鈥� so audiences could walk from one to the other and literally see the same artist celebrated and condemned. Such was the fickleness of the Third Reich鈥檚 reactionary logic. Both sculptures are included in this show.

鈥淢odern Art and Politics鈥� shows how dozens of German artists responded to the impossible pressures of an increasingly restrictive and repressive government. Some spoke out, then fled the country. Some spoke out, stuck around and were sent to the camps. Some actively supported the regime but saw their work condemned anyway. Others tried to keep out of politics altogether or engaged in self-censorship so as to maintain their teaching posts and professional art careers 鈥� strategies that sometimes worked, but not always.

If the German art world had pulled together in solidarity to oppose fascism as a united front, would that have changed anything? Or would that simply have made it easier for government agents to round them up en masse? Impossible to know, I guess. And the point is moot anyway, because the German art world before and during the fascist era was deeply fractured, so any semblance of unity was unlikely.

What we are left with, then, is an archive of individual choices. Flawed, human choices by real people 鈥� cowardly or bold, impulsive or anxious, righteous or misguided 鈥� doing whatever they thought was right, or prudent, in the face of extreme circumstances.

Who made the best choices? And can I empathize with those who chose differently?

I know professor Rosenberg would have said it鈥檚 better to die while living an authentic, principled life than to live inauthentically, or in the service of a cruel regime. He often spoke about the importance of political commitment, a phrase that wasn鈥檛 particularly fashionable in the late 1990s, when I was in undergrad, but which I鈥檝e been hearing artists and writers using more in recent times.

鈥淢odern Art and Politics鈥� doesn鈥檛 preach or take sides, but rather presents an archive of divergent perspectives, encouraging thoughtful self-reflection among viewers. What would I have done? What would you have done? What is the responsibility of the art and culture sector in times of extreme intolerance, anti-intellectualism and political repression?

German art exhibition at sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum explores life under fascism