My article on the exhibition Masterpiece in Focus: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar, on view at the National Gallery of Canada from April 18 to August 25, 2019, is featured in the National Gallery of Canada's Magazine. Guest curator Sebastian Schütze built an exhibition around Max Klinger’s Bust of Friedrich Nietzsche (c. 1904), part of the Gallery’s permanent collection, in order to illuminate its historical context and help viewers understand its wider significance.
Max Klinger, Friedrich Nietzsche, c. 1904. Patinated bronze, 63.2 × 47.3 × 26.5 cm. Gift of the Robert Tanenbaum Family Trust, Toronto, 1999. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo: NGC
Schütze says, “The exhibition brings a crucial moment of modernism to life, and shows, at the same time, how Nietzsche became a kind of reference figure for artists, writers and critics around 1900.” Concentrating on the period from the late 1890s onwards, it shows how a carefully constructed public image of Nietzsche was created in Weimar at a time when his writings were growing in influence, while the philosopher himself was in a state of mental and physical decline. As a whole, the exhibition captures an energetic moment when forward-thinking artists and architects embraced Nietzsche as a spiritual guide for their endeavours, and but only hints at the darker times to come. The complete text of my article was published here on April 17.
