European Realities

Covid-19, the energy crisis, inflation, populism and a rise in nationalist tendencies – that was the start of the 2020s. A devastating world war, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, National Socialism – that was the 1920s. For the first time, the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz are bringing together the realist movements of the 1920s and 1930s from across all of Europe  in a single exhibition. A world that had fallen apart at the seams found creative expression in art that emphasised reality. It illuminated the existential fears of poverty, hunger, illness and social decline while foreshadowing the endangered ideals of the 20th century, such as the belief in progress. The exhibition links the themes of the past with the sociopolitical issues of the present, and raises the question of what the future will look like.