Caspar David Friedrich was born almost at the same time as the Industrial Revolution, which brought radical social, economic, technological and ecological changes to Europe during his life and work up to 1840.
Friedrich’s art is in part a critique of these processes in the spirit of Romanticism, representing the autonomy and transcendent power of nature against its increasing control, rationalisation and exploitation, as well as the spiritual and intellectual autonomy of the individual against the homogenisation of mass society and the alienating workings of early capitalism.
The industrial revolution has led, in two hundred and fifty years, to the ecological and social polycrisis of our time, in which the stakes of Friedrich’s art seem more relevant than ever. Accordingly, the artists in the exhibition reflect on the questions of the present through various themes and motifs of Friedrich’s work: what is the status of the genre of landscape today in times of crisis, ecological transformation and artificialisation of the landscape, while recent ecophilosophical theories suggest that natural beings can once again be seen as non-human entities in their own right, as the Romantics did?
In what way is the Wanderer, the (ideal) figure of the Friedrichian wanderer, present in a changed form, from the wandering refugee to the revival of his romantic programme of withdrawal into nature and a sustainable way of life and community? Is the aesthetic category of the sublime, previously considered exhausted, relevant again, when we are confronted on a global scale with the limitation and finitude of human agency and the need for a way of life that transcends human-centredness?
The Goethe-Institut and FKSE 2024 have launched an open competition to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Caspar David Friedrich, and the exhibition will showcase the best entries selected by the jury: Miriam Bruns, Head of the Goethe Institute, Budapest; Laura Förster, art historian, Hamburger Kunsthalle; Barnabás Zemlényi-Kovács, theorist, critic, independent curator.