Dawn of Humanity: Art in Periods of Upheaval (German Edition)

The book and exhibition present works from the first two decades of the twentieth century from the Kunstmuseum Bonn' s collection in dialogue with contemporary creative positions. What the works have in common across the distance of a century is their genesis in, and reflection on, a time of major social and political crisis. Back then, life had been profoundly changed by the industrial revolution; nowadays, climate change, wars, and the rising political power of right-wing ideologies are transforming the life of our communities. The presentation conceives art as a tool that lets us interrogate the world and imparts fresh intellectual impulses, and so also plays an active part in our societies. The title Menschheitsdä mmerung - Dawn of Humanity - is borrowed from the poetry anthology of the same title released by Kurt Pinthus in 1919. Florian Illies, who already wrote an afterword for the 2019 centenary edition of Menschheitsdä mmerung - the bestselling poetry anthology in the history of German literature - contributed the keynote essay in the book.