A major exhibition featuring works by Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch has drawn massive crowds to the art collections of Chemnitz, Germany's European Capital of Culture for 2025. The show, titled "Edvard Munch. Angst" (Fear), represents one of the cultural highlights of the city's year-long celebration and has proven so popular that online tickets for many days are completely sold out.
Long lines of visitors, both young and old, snake along the impressive sandstone Möbius building at Chemnitz's Theaterplatz, hoping to gain entry to see Munch's powerful works. Despite the digital ticketing system being overwhelmed, many people who arrived without advance reservations continue to wait patiently in analog queues reminiscent of East German times, with organizers so far not turning anyone away.
The exhibition showcases how Munch's paintings resonate deeply with the emotions of today's fractured and uncertain world. Among the featured works is "Two People. The Lonely Ones," a powerful allegory of alienation that was modeled after a Chemnitz couple named Perls, who eventually separated. This particular painting has a tragic history tied to the city itself - it originally belonged to the Chemnitz Art Collections but was sold by the Nazis as "degenerate art" and is now held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Munch's artistic vision, which captured the psychological anxieties of his era, continues to speak to contemporary audiences grappling with modern forms of existential dread and social disconnection. The exhibition demonstrates how the Norwegian master's exploration of fear, loneliness, and human vulnerability remains strikingly relevant in our current age of global uncertainty and social fragmentation.
