Political constructivists. The “Progressives,” 1919–33
Both the catalogue and the exhibition shown in 1975 at the Akademie der Künste were developed on the basis of the exhibition Vom Dadamax bis zum Grüngürtel – Köln in den 20er Jahren (From Dadamax to the Green Belt—Cologne in the 1920s) at Kölnischer Kunstverein. The “Group of Progressive Artists” was formed in Cologne after World War I, with divergent political views and different artistic approaches, but with the shared goal of bringing their work closer to current events. The group’s members included Augustin Tschinkel, Peter Alma, Otto Freundlich, and F. W. Seiwert, while the portraits of the artists printed in the catalogue are by August Sander, known for his epoch-making photo project People of the 20th Century. For Berlin, the travelling exhibition working group at the nGbK shifted the local emphasis of the Cologne exhibition and adjusted the selection of works. Their main aim was to offer a platform for this group of constructivist painters, as there was no compendium of painting at the time that documented their work, and they were not yet present it the collections of Berlin’s museums.

Hg.: nGbK

Arbeitsgruppe: Valdis J. Āboliņš, Tom Fecht, Hubertus Gaßner, Eckhart Gillen, Meike Hielscher, Peter Hielscher, Diethart Kerbs, Susanne Onken, Katrin Sello, Krista Tebbe, Margrit Vogel