Jugendstil, die grosse Utopie2015

In its exhibition entitled Art Nouveau. The Great Utopian Vision, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG), accompanied by a newly designed presentation of its existing Art Nouveau Collection, retraces an era which produced so much more than whimsically playful ornamentation. Art Nouveau defined itself via reform movements, visions and Utopian dreams aimed at renewing society. The special exhibition throws light on this cultural and historical background and development, drawing together the ideas linking Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" and Peter Behrens's salon grand piano with symbols quoted from Friedrich Nietzsche's "Zarathustra". It shows reform movement robes, a solar bath for sun-worshippers, photographs of nudists playing sports in the open air or Loïe Fuller's celebrated light...