The Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz is currently hosting a magnificent exhibition showcasing the works of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), demonstrating that his powerful explorations of human psychology and existential dread remain as captivating today as they were over a century ago. Under the title "Anxiety," the exhibition presents Munch's emotionally charged paintings and graphics alongside works by his contemporaries and contemporary artists, creating a compelling dialogue between past and present artistic expressions of mental anguish.
Munch's artistic legacy centers on his unparalleled ability to visualize ambivalence and inner turmoil, making psychological states tangible through his distinctive visual language. His emotionally intense paintings and graphics explore themes of illness, grief, death, melancholy, and loneliness, speaking through their reduced, expressive formal language and intense, somber coloring of mental suffering deeply rooted in personal fears. As the artist himself once confessed, "In my art, I have tried to explain life and its meaning to myself. I also had the intention of helping others understand their own lives."
The Norwegian artist's troubled psychological constitution, which required multiple clinical treatments throughout his life, stemmed from profound personal losses. Having lost his mother at age five and later his beloved sister, Munch suffered from a problematic mental state that manifested in complicated partnerships and a persistent fear of both intimacy and isolation. These experiences created a complex emotional mixture that found release in impressive artistic solutions. Despite his struggles, Munch managed to largely stabilize himself through work as therapy, becoming a pioneer of Expressionism through his radical examination of existential questions.
The large-scale exhibition examines the fragility and complexity of the self through the lens of self-reflection. In works like the "Portrait of Wilhelm le Fevre Grimsgaard," cool coloring and a shadowy suggested female figure hint at the unresolved life motif of closeness and distance in relationships, while "The Murderer in the Avenue" reflects more internal torments. The catalog accompanying the exhibition illuminates his radical confrontation with existential questions through profound contributions.
Representations of illness and despair in intoxication intensify moments of self-questioning throughout Munch's work. Hospital beds, hearses, and the nameless terror that breaks through in the iconic versions of "The Scream" have their deepest roots in traumatic childhood experiences, particularly the early death of his mother. "I see all people behind their masks, smiling, calm faces of pale corpses, restlessly hurrying along a winding path that ends in the grave," reads one of his recorded reflections.
After a severe breakdown, Munch created "Alpha and Omega," a graphic portfolio accompanying his own prose poem that contemplates love and the deadly estrangement of a couple. The painting "Two Human Beings. The Lonely Ones" takes up the same theme as the lithographs, depicting a man and woman in a desolate seascape as a reflection of their spiritual emptiness. Standing only half a meter apart, Munch shows viewers that worlds separate these two figures. The painting, begun in 1906, has come to Chemnitz as a loan from the United States to tell its story at the most magnificent exhibition of the 2025 Cultural Capital.
The return of this particular Munch painting carries special historical significance for Chemnitz. Museum director Friedrich Schreiber-Weigand had spent four years working tirelessly to acquire the work for Chemnitz, finally succeeding in 1928. Nine years later, 82 works by the Norwegian artist in German museums were denounced as "degenerate" by the Nazis. The city sold the work to Hamburg art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who served Hitler by selling defamed art abroad and became heavily compromised. The painting now hangs amid landscapes and Nordic snow forests that mirror internal states, with people who cannot find each other and bear their burden of loneliness upright.
Several works in the exhibition underscore Munch's relationship with Chemnitz. In 1905, he was recommended to textile manufacturer Herbert Esche as a profound portraitist for family member portraits. The founders of the Dresden artists' association "Brücke," who originated from Chemnitz, including Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, were notably inspired by the markedly simplified formal language of his woodcuts.
The exhibition unites 140 paintings, graphics, photographs, sculptures, and video installations, featuring works from the Chemnitz Art Collections' holdings as well as national and international loans. Munch's fundamental tone of loneliness, melancholy, and desperation is echoed among his contemporaries by fellow Norwegian Christian Krohg with his bleakly exhausted seamstress, the rarely shown café house paintings by Marianne Werefkin from the Munich "Blue Rider" group circle, and Egon Schiele's self-portrait revealing vulnerability and inner tension.
The selection of approximately 20 contemporary positions also focuses on Chemnitz art by Michael Morgner, Osmar Osten, Steffen Volmer, Irene Bösch, and the early-deceased Maja Wunsch. Works addressing anxiety and diffuse threat include pieces by Marina Abramović, Georg Baselitz, Andy Warhol, and Paula Rego. Notable examples include Lenka Falusiova from the Czech Republic, who creates an oppressively eerie spiritual landscape with meticulous precision, Neo Rauch, who leads his assertion "No Fear" ad absurdum in a mysterious scenery, and Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf, who exposes a modern kitchen as a dreary place of waiting and hopelessness.
The "Edvard Munch. Anxiety" exhibition runs until November 2 at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (Theaterplatz 1), open Tuesday, Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. More information is available at kunstsammlungen-chemnitz.de.
