Women

Munich

The three exceptional 20th-century artists Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann, Willem de Kooning and their depictions of women, or rather the role attributed to women in their art, form the focus of the exhibition Women. Well known are the clichés surrounding the `public´ private lives of these three artists aside – their macho attitudes or alleged behavioural patterns etc. – their artistic handling of women as a motif goes far beyond any one-sided approach and stands, as such, apart from other considerations. Women appear in a considerably more differentiated and radical manner in their work, they gain an extraordinary significance of their own, and are frequently and sensitively used to mirror the problems and upheavals in history.

Women are not merely objects for the projection of male fantasies, passion or desire, but catalysts for a closer examination of their own biographies as well as of history in general (Picasso); they become self-contained counter-images, completely autonomous in their own right (Beckmann) or an independent force in which the expressive possibilities of artistic work culminate (de Kooning).

Pinakothek der Moderne

March 30th – July 15th, 2012
Barer Straße 40
80333 Munich
Germany

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