Falling Stars
World War I as the End of the Road: Disrupted Lives from Boccioni to Schiele
11 October 2014 to 8 February 2015
The Kunsthalle zu Kiel commemorated the anniversary of the beginning of the First World War with the exhibition Falling Stars and presented a unique and representative cross section of pre-war modernism in Germany and Europe. Falling Stars engaged with European artists whose lives and artistic careers found an abrupt end due to the War and the attendant circumstances, such as Spanish influenza and suicide. The title of the show quoted the expressionist poet August Stramm, who wrote the poem Wunde (Wound) during World War I and was also one of its many victims.
The works of 60 artists from 12 European nations were on view in the presentation. Some of the names has been indelibly etched in the memories of international and German art lovers. Such is the case, for example, with Franz Marc and August Macke, Albert Weisgerber and Umberto Boccioni. But the oeuvres of many other artists were, if at all, only sparsely represented in public collections and found, with this exhibition, a public forum for the very first time. Thus the exhibition asked in what respects this caesura impacted modern art in general.
Not only the artists presented in Falling Stars are from all over Europe, the same was also true of both public and private lenders. They range from the Tate in London to the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
A catalog had been published to accompany the exhibition.