Europe's encounters with foreign cultures are diverse and characterized by ambivalent interests. Art has an important role to play here. It reflects and shapes the idea of the foreign, reflects its own cultural identity by differentiating itself from the other and constantly renegotiates these positions.
With over eighty important works, the exhibition sheds light on the construction and representation of foreignness in European art. It spans an arc from the late Middle Ages to the present day. How did Europe look at America around 1500? How much fiction is there in the depictions of the Orient? What role does non-European art play for the Expressionists and what significance does skin color have in art?
Using top-class works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jean-Étienne Liotard, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, among others, the exhibition questions familiar pictorial traditions and perspectives. In dialog with paintings, photography and video art by contemporary artists such as Gülsün Karamustafa, Lisl Ponger and Yinka Shonibare, the current view of the subject is revealed.
With over eighty important works, the exhibition sheds light on the construction and representation of foreignness in European art. It spans an arc from the late Middle Ages to the present day. How did Europe look at America around 1500? How much fiction is there in the depictions of the Orient? What role does non-European art play for the Expressionists and what significance does skin color have in art?
Using top-class works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jean-Étienne Liotard, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, among others, the exhibition questions familiar pictorial traditions and perspectives. In dialog with paintings, photography and video art by contemporary artists such as Gülsün Karamustafa, Lisl Ponger and Yinka Shonibare, the current view of the subject is revealed.
