Defiance & Melancholy presents a review of the history of German painting over the last two hundred years, from Romanticism to today, with more than 60 paintings from the collection of the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden. But the exhibition also explores the dynamic between two emotions. Defiance manifests as opposition to fixed attitudes and traditions, such as in the work of Georg Baselitz (1938–). Melancholy is represented by paintings expressing alienation from the contemporary world.

Dresden has been a major city of art in many periods. The famous painter of romantic landscapes Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) lived and worked there. The expressionist BRÜCKE group was founded in Dresden in 1905, and the contemporary artist Gerhard Richter (1932–) was born and studied art in Dresden.

The home of the Galerie Neue Meister collection, the Albertinum, has been closed for reconstruction since 2006. It will reopen in 2010 as Museum of Modernity.

The exhibition has been produced in cooperation with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / Galerie Neue Meister. The exhibition is under the patronage of Wilfried Grolig, Ambassador to Germany in Finland. The exhibition is sponsored by HOK-Elanto, the German Embassy and the Goethe-Institut.

Lasipalatsin Mediakeskus Oy ©2001 27.4.2009