Look at the People!

To make sense of the world around us, we make divisions and classifications—and in doing so, we don’t stop at our fellow human beings. Such categorizations are often shaped by prejudices. It is difficult to escape this dilemma, since it is a deeply human and usually subliminal practice. We can, however, become aware of the underlying processes and thus arrive at a prejudice-conscious approach.

This is the aim of the project Look at the People! The exhibition focuses on the New Objectivity “type” portrait in the historical context of the Weimar Republic (1918–33). In many of their portraits, artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Jeanne Mammen, and Hanna Nagel gave definition to social types like the “New Woman” and the “Worker.” These depictions were largely influenced by a pervasive social debate in the crisis-ridden population as a result of World War I. Whether in art, literature, film, fashion, or science, the search for a “face of the times,” for new “role models” was omnipresent. In retrospect, it becomes clear that many stereotypes and clichés that manifested themselves in the 1920s, particularly via the emerging popular mass media, continue to have an effect today and still impact how we view others.

The project draws a connection to the present with an installation developed specifically for the exhibition by the Berlin-based artist Cemile Sahin (b. 1990). She picks up on typification and classification tendencies that appear in computer-based facial-recognition tools. Here, we can see parallels to the Weimar-era debate about constitution and type. In contrast to then, however, it is no longer the belief in the intuitive gaze that is at issue but our dubious trust in artificial intelligence and its facial recognition programs.

Artists Hans Baluschek, Rudolf Bergander, Albert Birkle, Richard Birnstengel, Friedrich Bochmann, Steffi Brandl, Gottfried Brockmann, Friedrich Busack, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Erich Drechsler, Kate Diehn-Bitt, Rudolf Dischinger, Otto Dix, Hermann Fechenbach, Conrad Felixmüller, Fred Goldberg, Otto Griebel, George Grosz, Lea Grundig, Hans Grundig, Elsa Haensgen-Dingkuhn, Hainz Hamisch, Olga Hayduk, Nini Hess, Karl Hubbuch, Heinrich Hoerle, Lotte Jacobi, Grethe Jürgens, Alexander Kanoldt, Annelise Kretschmer, Paula Lauenstein, Lotte Lesehr-Schneider, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, Jeanne Mammen, Hanna Nagel, Gerta Overbeck-Schenk, Lotte B. Prechner, Anton Räderscheidt, Curt Querner, Christian Schad, August Sander, Josef Scharl, Rudolf Schlichter, Wilhelm Schnarrenberger, Georg Scholz, Alice Sommer, Cami Stone, Erika Streit, Ernst Thoms, Kurt Weinhold, Erik Winnertz, Dörte Clara Wolff [DODO], Richard Ziegler—and Cemile Sahin

Concept Anne Vieth / Curator Dierk Höhne / Assistant curators Alina Grehl, Arne Schmidt

An exhibition organized by the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in cooperation with the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz—Museum Gunzenhauser. The exhibition is generously supported by: Kulturstiftung der Länder, Friede Springer Stiftung, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, Rudolf-August Oetker-Stiftung, LEAP, MUSAGET, Innovationsfonds Kunst Baden-Württemberg.