Author Description

The oeuvre of Hans Richter (1888-1976) spanned nearly seven decades. Born in Berlin, he was one of the most significant champions of modernism. Berlin, Paris, Munich, Zurich, Moscow and New York were the major stations of his life. He was a painter and draughtsman, a Dadaist and a Constructivist, a film maker and a theoretician, as well as a great teacher. His great scroll collages remain icons of art history to this day. His work is characterised by a virtually unparalleled interpenetration of different artistic disciplines. The link between film and art was his major theme. Many of the most famous artists of the first half of the twentieth century were among his friends. ‘Hans Richter: Encounters from Dada to Today’ is the title of one of his books, which appeared in the 1970s. In post-war West Germany it was preceded by a rediscovery of this significant artist, who was hounded by the Nazis and whose work was shown as part of the infamous ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition of 1937. Now, for the first time since the 1980s, an exhibition is being dedicated to this great Berlin artist in his native city. It includes over 140 works, including his major films and some fifty works by artists whom he influenced. Hans Richter worked with multimedia in an era when this term hadn’t even been invented. He regarded film as part of modern art. ‘The absolute film opens your eyes to what the camera is, what it can do, and what it wants.’0Exhibition: Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany (27.3.-30.6.2014).