Ridiculously Yours! Art, Awkwardness and Enthusiasm: Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany

“I report obediently that I am stupid,” was the subtitle given by George Grosz, the great painter and caricaturist of the Weimar Republic, to his caricature of a soldier, in which he criticized the uniform arrogance of his time with biting humor.

On the one hand very serious, on the other hand extremely funny, the entire exhibition illuminates the enthusiastic awkwardness in modern and contemporary art, which doesn't shy away from the absurd, the irrationally stupid. The delightful tour includes works by around 100 artists from all over the world and spans from the 16th century to the present day.

In modernism since the 19th century, and especially in the classical avant-garde of the early 20th century, a very specific direction can be discerned: on the one hand, bold innovations, radical negation, and startling aesthetic principles; on the other hand, a particular kind of laughter that forms the basis for this exhibition project. It is a laughter that is both enjoyable and subverts all conservatism, moral concepts, and avant-garde dogmas. This laughter reveals how authority falters, how pompous gestures and the image of the hero are deflated.