NEW YORK.- The Neue Galerie New York opens the exhibition “Alfred Kubin: Drawings, 1897-1909,” featuring more than 100 works on paper by the Austrian artist. This is the first major museum exhibition of his work ever held in the United States, and it focuses on his macabre early drawings, watercolors, and lithographs. It will be on view at the Neue Galerie through January 26, 2009. The exhibition is organized by Annegret Hoberg, curator of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich.
The exhibition has generated considerable interest among scholars and in the press, with New York Magazine citing it as one of the exhibitions “you really cannot miss this fall.”
“Kubin plumbs the depths of the shadow world of the human subconscious, with its unguarded impulses and fears,” said Renée Price, Director of the Neue Galerie. “His drawings have the evanescence and the frightening clarity of our darkest dreams.”
Though a contemporary of artist Gustav Klimt and designer Josef Hoffmann, Alfred Kubin (1877-1959) eschewed the decorative impulses found in their work. Instead, inspired by the art of Francisco Goya, Félicien Rops, Max Klinger, James Ensor, and Edvard Munch, Kubin produced hallucinatory visions of violence and eroticism. Literature served as an inspiration as well, and Kubin illustrated masterpieces by Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Nikolai Gogol. Illustrations from Kubin’s bizarre1908 novel The Other Side will be included in the exhibition.
The artist’s entire iconography points to his traumatic experiences as a child and youth. Having witnessed his mother’s death at the age of 11, he became obsessed with death and dying, in particular murder and suicide. He suffered from acute anxiety and sexual paranoia, and his drawings show the influence of those maladies.
The Neue Galerie will host a concurrent film series, entitled “Tales from the Other Side.” In the spirit of Alfred Kubin, the selection of films will focus on the bizarre and irrational. Films are presented free of charge at 6:30 p.m. in the Café Fledermaus. Space is limited.
Friday, September 26 and October 3
The Trial, 1962
Directed by Orson Welles, 118 minutes
Friday, October 10 and 17
Dream City (Traumstadt), 1973
Directed by Johannes Schaaf, 124 minutes
Friday, October 24 and 31
The Exorcist, 1973
Directed by William Friedkin, 122 minutes
Friday, November 7 and 14
Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1986
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, 100 minutes
Friday, November 21
The Castle (Das Schloss), 1997
Directed by Michael Haneke, 123 minutes
Friday, December 5 and 12
Sleepy Hollow, 1990
Directed by Tim Burton, 105 minutes.
Friday, December 19 and January 9
An evening of animated short films by the Brothers Quay
Friday, January 16 and 23
Yella, 2007
Directed by Christian Petzold, 100 minutes
The museum will host two gallery talks in connection with the exhibition. On Thursday, September 25, Annegret Hoberg, curator of the show, will speak on the artist’s life and work. On Thursday, October 23, Jane Kallir, director of Galerie St. Etienne, will present “The Other Side: A View into Kubin’s Artistic Philosophy.” Gallery talks are presented free of charge at 6:30 p.m. and are open only to Neue Galerie members.
