Media Contact: Christine Liggio

(609) 258-7615/cliggio@princeton.edu

PRINCETON, N.J.— The Princeton University Art Museum is pleased to present Myth and Modernity: Ernst Barlach's Images of the Nibelungen and Faust, on view from February 21 through June 7, 2009.  The exhibition conveys the versatility and narrative power of the German sculptor, printmaker, and playwright Ernst Barlach (1870-1938) through several of the artist's sculptures, as well as woodcuts depicting the Walpurgis Night scene in Goethe's Faust and drawings illustrating the climatic end of the medieval epic of the Nibelungen.

The Princeton University Art Museum's showing of Myth and Modernity represents the first time Barlach's cycle of drawings on the Nibelungen will be on view to an American audience. The exhibition was organized with the cooperation of the Ernst Barlach Foundation in Güstrow, Germany, where it will become part of an expanded presentation next year. Myth and Modernity was conceived by Peter Paret, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, and organized by Calvin Brown, associate curator of prints and drawings, and Professor Paret.

“The exhibition’s major examples of Barlach’s sculpture and graphics will provide a good introduction to the work of one of the great artists of the twentieth-century,” said Peter Paret.

The artist’s graphic interpretations from the 1920s of two cycles of German literary classics, twenty woodcuts illustrating the Walpurgis Night scene of Goethe’s Faust and the powerful series of seventeen charcoal drawings and studies inspired by the tale of the Nibelungen, are the cornerstones of the exhibition. While Faust is a classic text well known in this country, the Nibelungen epic is less familiar to the American public, primarily known in America as the inspiration for a 1924 silent film by Fritz Lang and most of all for parts of Richard Wagner’s operatic Ring Cycle. This epic poem of love, honor, and revenge was first written down circa  A.D. 1200. Several manuscripts, discovered in the late 1700s, were translated into modern German and by the nineteenth century became well known throughout Germany. The Nibelungen epic, considered a Germanic counterpart to the epics of Homer in modern Greek history, has continually played an important role in German culture and history down to the Third Reich and beyond.

“Although the artist's importance has been long recognized abroad, this will be the first monographic exhibition devoted to Barlach to be held in the United States in over thirty-five years. Myth and Modernity: Ernst Barlach's Images of the Nibelungen and Faust is a perfect exhibition to be held at the Princeton University Art Museum, as it will be of interest to students and scholars across many disciplines throughout the university community,” commented Calvin Brown.

Ernst Barlach was a major figure in German art during the last years of the empire and in the Weimar Republic. Barlach's sculptures and drawings are held in several major American museums and collections, but his singular interpretation on modernism is still not as well known in this country as it is in Europe.  As independent in his political beliefs as in his work, he defended the autonomy of the individual, and was opposed to any form of ideological constraints, whether of the left or the right.  His drawings of the Nibelungen take the beauty and power of the epic seriously, but refuse to glorify its characters’ bloodlust and unquestioned loyalty to the death, which nationalists and National Socialists elevated as models for the German people.  During the Third Reich, Barlach’s work was removed from museums and art galleries, some of it was destroyed, a volume of his drawings was confiscated by the Gestapo, and shown in the exhibition of Degenerate Art.

The Nibelungen drawings and some of the sculptures are on loan from the Barlach Foundation in Güstrow, Germany.  Other works, including prints from Goethe’s Faust and sculptures in wood and bronze, are drawn from German and American private collections, as well as the Princeton University Art Museum. Among the few works in the exhibition not by Barlach is a bronze sculpture created by his friend Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), in homage to the master at the time of his death.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated brochure written by Peter Paret, and produced by the museum’s Publications Department. A symposium will be held on March 28, 2009, which will explore issues of art and politics raised by Barlach's work.

Lecture
February 21, 5:00 p.m.
Barlach at the Princeton University Art Museum
Peter Paret, professor emeritus of the Institute for Advanced Study and the author of numerous books on European history and culture, will give a talk on Ernst Barlach (1870–1938), an important twentieth-century German artist.
McCormick 101, Princeton University
Free and open to the public
Reception in the museum to follow

Symposium
March 28, 1:00–6:00 p.m.
Ernst Barlach:  Image, Form, Text
In conjunction with the exhibition Myth and Modernity: Ernst Barlach’s Images of the Nibelungen and Faust, the museum will present a symposium featuring a keynote lecture, Barlach’s Nibelungen: Rejection and Celebration of a German Icon, by Peter Paret, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study and curator of the exhibition.

Moderator: Walter H. Hinderer, professor of German, Princeton University
Speakers include: Michael J. Curschmann, professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, emeritus, Princeton University; Esther da Costa Meyer, associate professor of art and archaeology, Princeton University; Dorothea Dietrich, chair of academic studies, Corcoran College of Art and Design; Volker Probst, director, and Helga Thieme, curator, Ernst Barlach Foundation, Güstrow, Germany.

McCormick 101, Princeton University
Reception in the museum to follow
Free and open to the public. For more information, please call (609) 258-3788.

Films
April 9, 5:30–8:00 p.m.
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried
April 10, 5:00–8:00 p.m.
Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge
Directed by Fritz Lang, 1924
Introduction by Calvin Brown, associate curator of prints and drawings
Free and open to the public
McCormick 101, Princeton University

Legendary film director Fritz Lang’s film adaptation of the epic German tale, The Nibelungen, will be shown in two parts: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried  follows the life and murder of Siegfried, son of King Sigmund, who married Kriemhild, the beautiful sister of Guther, King of Worms. Kriemhild swears to avenge his death and the second film recounts her brutal revenge. The April 9 film, Die Nibelungen: Siegfried, will be followed by The Niebelungen: An After Hours Event, from 7:30–9:30 p.m.

After Hours at the Art Museum
April 9, 7:30-9:30 p.m.
The Nibelungen: An After Hours Event
The museum invites undergraduates, graduate students, and the community for an evening of refreshments, music, and tours of the exhibition.
Free and open to the public, Princeton University Art Museum

About the Museum
Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum is one of the finest art museums in the country. Its collection features approximately 70,000 works ranging from ancient to contemporary art, and concentrating geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, the United States, and Latin America, with particular strengths in Chinese painting and calligraphy, art of the ancient Americas, and pictorial photography. As a public institution, the museum is committed to serving the local community, the region, and beyond through innovative and dynamic programming, original research and new scholarship, an active loan program, and the organization of touring exhibitions of its works. By collaborating with faculty, students, and staff, and through direct and sustained access to original works of art, the museum contributes to the development of critical thinking and visual literacy at Princeton University.

The Princeton University Art Museum is located in the center of the Princeton University campus, next to Prospect House and only a short walk from Princeton’s Nassau Street. Museum admission is free and open to the general public. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and major holidays. Free highlights tours of the collection are given every Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For information, please call (609) 258-3788 or visit the museum’s Web site at http://artmuseum.princeton.edu.