A New World Picture: Art After Catastrophe

A: We're starting our journey in Munich, at a place called the Haus der Kunst. What's fascinating about this building is its origin story: it was originally named the Haus der Deutschen Kunst, literally, the 'House of German Art.'

B: And that sounds very nationalistic, very much tied into the Nazi era, I'm guessing?

A: Precisely. Adolf Hitler himself conceived it as a 'temple' for what he deemed 'true German art.' He inaugurated it in 1937 with the 'Great German Art Exhibition,' showcasing works that glorified his regime's aesthetic ideals. In stark contrast, almost simultaneously, the infamous 'Degenerate Art' (Entartete Kunst) exhibition opened nearby, condemning all forms of modern art Hitler despised.

B: So, it was a direct cultural battleground, literally right next door. How did a place so steeped in Nazi ideology ever become a beacon of modernism, then?

A: That's where the concept of 'denazification' comes in. After the war, the American forces occupied the building, and it underwent a programmatic reversal of its cultural ideology. It shed 'Deutsche' from its name, becoming simply Haus der Kunst. It then began exhibiting the very modern art it once vehemently rejected. Notably, it even hosted a Picasso retrospective, featuring his anti-war masterpiece, Guernica.

A: So, we've talked about the political reorientation of art. But how do artists actually represent something so utterly devastating and unprecedented as the Holocaust or the atomic bombings? It brings us to this idea of the 'unrepresentable image'.

B: That's a powerful phrase. It reminds me of Theodor Adorno's quote, 'To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.' Did he mean art shouldn't even try to engage with it?

A: Precisely. Adorno's statement sparked immense debate. It questioned whether conventional artistic forms could ever truly capture the horror without trivializing it. Yet, artists did try, using new visual languages.

B: Like Picasso's The Charnel House, or Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion? I remember seeing those—the distorted figures, the visceral anguish... they don't depict the camps literally, but convey the trauma.

A: Exactly. They used figural distortion and abstraction to grapple with the psychological and physical devastation. Then, turning to the atomic bomb, you have different approaches: Yōsuke Yamahata's chilling Nagasaki photos, which are direct, immediate witnessing.

B: And the Marukis' Hiroshima Panels? Those are huge, almost mural-like, right? A very different scale and artistic choice to convey the scope of the destruction.

A: Yes, Iri and Toshi Maruki’s panels are monumental, using a more allegorical, expressive style. So, we see artists moving between direct witnessing, intense figural distortion, and even abstraction to find ways to make visible what many considered unrepresentable. As Europe was grappling with its postwar identity, a completely new world picture was also emerging, fundamentally challenging the Western-centric view of art. This was deeply tied to decolonization.

B: Right, so not just political shifts, but a massive cultural upheaval globally. How did art really respond to that pressure?

A: It was profound. Thinkers like Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon were critically dismantling Western 'humanism,' exposing its hypocrisy while colonialism still thrived. They argued that these 'universal' ideals often masked very particular, often oppressive, power structures.

B: So, artists in newly independent nations weren't just adopting Western modernism, they were actively forging their own modernisms, challenging the very definition of 'modern' art?

A: Precisely. We see the rise of postcolonial modernism, often characterized by a 'natural synthesis' as artist Uche Okeke put it, blending local traditions with global influences. Key events like the 1945 Pan-African Congress and the 1955 Bandung Conference were crucial in galvanizing this sense of cultural sovereignty. It really solidifies the argument that postwar art history has to be seen as a global network, recognizing the innovation coming from all these newly independent nations.