The Norwegian painter and graphic artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was one of the founding figures of modern art. Reflecting on existential states of mind in his work, he developed a symbolic expressive manner of visualizing the abysses of the modern soul. In the early years of the 20th century, the sensitive artist struggled with the fallout of a failed romantic relationship, living through depressing years of crisis that culminated in a nervous breakdown in 1908. During his eight-month stay at the sanatorium of Dr Daniel Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Munch converted his room into a studio and developed a new, extroverted and more expressive style. This period saw the creation of his chef d’oeuvre, Alpha and Omega, a series of 22 lithographs and a printed prose poem. Together, these add up to a pictorial parable relating, in several episodes, the story of Alpha and Omega, the first human beings on an island. In this island fantasy, Munch’s intense obsession with the battle of the sexes takes on grotesque dimensions, escalating into what can be described as an ironic reckoning with the libertarian sexual morals of Christiana’s bohemian society. Personal adversaries are caricatured as hybrid creatures and in the end Alpha kills Omega and is himself eaten by zoomorphic humans. Continuing the tradition of William Hogarth and Francisco Goya, Munch’s human bestiary appears as a caricature of society.
The exhibition is curated by the Austrian Munch expert Dieter Buchhart in cooperation with the Museum Kunst der Westküste.
