The Phenomenon Großmann Encounters Artistic Photography Cat. Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg in cooperation with Kunststiftung DZ Bank

Rudolf Groß mann (1882– 1941) was a renowned painter and graphic artist, and a feared chronicler on account of his rather pointed writings. He drew life in the big city in portraits, and café and street scenes in a richly facetted manner; during the 1910s and 1920s, he published texts and illustrations in magazines such as Simplicissimus, and also illustrated books for authors, among them Joachim Ringelnatz and Erich Kä stner. Today, Rudolf Groß mann is known only among those with a keen interest and expertise in the 1920s. Based on the question of why he has largely been forgotten, the exhibition and book seize the opportunity to initiate a dialogue between his work and recent photographic works by contemporary artists. His paintings and graphic oeuvre from the collection of the Museum fü r Neue Kunst Freiburg will be juxtaposed with photographic positions from the collection of the Kunststiftung DZ BANK. It is Rudolf Groß mann’ s portrait drawings in particular that bear a certain photographic aspect, and thus can be combined in a meaningful way with the various works, for instance, by Wolfgang Tillmans, Sven Johne, Nan Goldin, and Gisè le Freund. Moreover, Barbara Probst’ s multiperspective view or Beate Gü tschow’ s spatial constructions reveal, when they are placed in context with Rudolf Groß mann’ s graphic scenes, that there is a tremendous atmospheric proximity despite the leap in time of more than a hundred years. Rudolf Groß mann is characterized by a certain equidistance to the popular styles of his time; while this did distinguish his work and established a closeness to photography, it was not enough though to protect him from persecution by the National Socialists; he, too, was considered to be degenerate, and thereafter retreated to his native city of Freiburg.

Andreas Greulich is an art historian and now galerist in Frankfurt/Main. He has published widely on the German circle of artists who freqeuented the Café du D?me and on Rudolf Groß mann he is a specialist in particular, especially his print graphics. Rudolf Groß mann (1882– 1941) grew up in an artistic milieu. He first studied medicine and philosophy in Munich from 1902 to 1904 and then went to Paris for five years, among others as a student of Lucien Simon. fter his return to Germany, Groß mann lived in Berlin and from then on worked as a graphic artist, among other things with book illustrations and portraits of celebrities, the latter appearing in Simplicissimus, among other publications. In 1928 he became a professor at the Berlin Art Academy. Groß mann was a member of the Berlin Secession and the Deutscher Kü nstlerbund. Christina Leber (born in 1966) studied Catholic theology and education and completed her studies with a doctorate. From 1992 to 1999 Christina Leber was a freelancer for numerous corporate collections, including Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Tetra Pak, DG BANK and others. From 1999 to 2001 she was the managing director of the 2nd berlin biennial for contemporary art. Since 2003 she has been working for the DZ BANK art collection, first as curator, since 2011 as its director, now for the Kunststiftung DZ BANK. Christine Litz studied art history, German literature and education in Cologne and Bochum. With a doctorate in art history, she has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and published many texts and catalogues. She has worked at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, on the skulptur projekte mü nster 07, for the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and at dOCUMENTA 13. She has been director of the Museum fü r Neue Kunst, Freiburg since 2012. Dietmar Mezler is an art historian who now works fort he Kunststiftung DZ BANK. After completed his studies at the Kunsthochschule Kassel on the concept of space in Modernist painting he was working for several German cultural institutions including for Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Frankfurter Kunstverein, and SALT Istanbul. Isabel Herda studied European Art History and Medieval and Modern History at the University of Heidelberg. She has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art and published many catalogues and texts. She has been curator at the Museum fü r Neue Kunst, Freiburg since 2001, where she is in charge of the Graphic Collection. She has curated numerous exhibitions and accompanying catalogues on modern and contemporary art. Lisa Bauer-Zhao is an art historian and received her PhD in the philosphy of of culture on the understanding of “ modernity” in Taiwanese art discourse. She has been curator at the Museum fü r Neue Kunst Freiburg since 2018.