MUNICH.- The new presentation in the Archive Gallery augments the exhibition "Postwar: Art between the Pacific and Atlantic, 1945-1965" by examining Haus der Kunst's institutional memory during this period.

Haus der Kunst played a seminal role in the 1990s, when it was one of the first institutions to explore its own - often difficult - past. It exposed this history not only in publications, but also on site, in its place of origin. This approach motivated other institutions in turn to look at the roles they had played during the National Socialist period.

On the occasion of its 75th anniversary (2012), Haus der Kunst further expanded its pioneering position in the investigation of institutional memory. For over four years now, questions surrounding the postwar period, neglected topics - such as denazification - and the dynamic mediation and presentation of archive material have formed a core of discussion.

After 1945 the occupying powers intended to reestablish Munich as southern Germany's cultural capital. The city's renowned museums, however, had been severely damaged by Allied bombings. Only Haus der Kunst had escaped the war nearly unscathed and offered generous exhibition space. The exhibition program at the time reflected prevailing political and social goals. As soon as 1946, art exhibitions were once again being presented in Haus der Kunst in the spirit of "reeducation". During the same period the building also housed an officer's club for the US Army, which permanently vacated the building in 1955.

Haus der Kunst's new project dedicated to the postwar period focuses on the production of exhibitions during the years between 1946 and 1965. Although it was not specifically addressed as a topic, the denazification process of the exhibition program played a role. The rehabilitation of the modern era was explicitly pursued and communicated.

Denazification and rehabilitation designate a development that began in early 1946. In that year - in the context of the exhibition "15th and 16th Century Bavarian Painting" - the institution's original name, "Haus der Deutschen Kunst", was changed to "Haus der Kunst".

The scope of content in the first presentations ranged from German Old Masters, such as Albrecht Dürer, to a hall dedicated to Peter Paul Rubens, to the honoring of the very artists defamed by the Nazis, e.g. artists of Der Blaue Reiter group ("Der Blaue Reiter", 1949) as well as "Bauhaus Painters" (1950). These shows were presented in the building's west wing, which had housed the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen since 1946.

These exhibitions were organized by the art historian Ludwig Grote (1883-1974), who thereby shaped the profile of Haus der Kunst as a site of modernism in the first years after the war. Appointed director of the Germanisches Nationalmuseums in 1951, Grote was also active in the international art scene, including as commissioner of the first West German contributions to the biennials of São Paulo and Venice.

As part of a comprehensive new beginning, program curators at Haus der Kunst also actively sought to establish international artistic solidarity beyond Germany's borders. Exhibitions like the Picasso retrospective (1955), for which famous paintings such as "Guernica" (1937) and "Massacre in Korea" (1951) travelled to Munich, and an exhibition of Brazilian art (1959), formulated this focus. The international relationships Haus der Kunst has enjoyed with artists from around the world since the 1950s have largely been defined by the director at the time, Peter A. Ade (1913-2005). In this way Haus der Kunst became an important exhibition venue for avant-garde art, and continues to serve as a case study for a visionary approach to art and the reestablishment of an international reputation.

The new exhibition in the Archive Gallery traces this development. The Archive Gallery understands itself as a dynamic memory whose visual appearance changes each year. In cooperation with Martin Schmidl and students of Munich's Academy of Fine Arts, curator Sabine Brantl has developed an exhibition display in which documents, exhibition catalogues, posters, photographs, reports and film material dating from the period between 1945 and 1965 provide a platform for individual and collective research.