At the dawn of the last century, photographs of nudes could be found everywhere. The exhibition The Naked Truth and More Besides presents the astonishing diversity of photographic depictions of the disrobed human body that existed around this time. It was an age in which the foundations were laid for the development in the public domain of an extremely varied type of image, which, more than any other, continues to inform the world in which we live today.

Most striking of all, the photographic nude appeared as a reproducible medium - on postcards, cigarette cards, posters, in magazines and in advertising, as inspiration for artists and an incentive for sportsmen, as instructional material, and as collector's items. From the vast array of material, it is possible to identify several distinct groups that fall under such headings as: the mass produced, visual pleasures (arcadias, eroticism, and pornography), the body in the eye of science (ethnography, motion-study photography, medicine), the cult of the body (reform movements - especially in German-speaking countries - naturism, 'Free Body Culture', and staged nudes from the world of sport and variety shows), and, of course, the nude in the artistic context (art academies and the Pictorialist tradition of fine-art prints). The most important characteristic of the image of naked people during this time is the inseparability of nude photographic production and reproduction.

The trade or exchange in nude photographs was widespread across the whole of Europe. This is reflected in today's exhibition, which not only features many treasures and rare finds from the Kunstbibliothek's own Collection of Photography, but also includes important loans from several European institutions, ranging from the Bibliothèque nationale de France to the Police Museum of Lower Saxony.

Galerie Michael Janssen
Potsdamer Str. 63
D-10785 Berlin
Germany

This small exhibition on the upper floor of the Altes Museum draws on exemplary objects within the Collection of Classical Antiquities' own holdings to put the spotlight on the Aegean Bronze Age and the material legacy of the developments that occurred during this period, which climaxed in the region's 'palace culture'.

The Collection of Classical Antiquities presides over several treasures from protohistory already familiar to scholars and the general public, as well as objects dating from the Aegean Bronze Age that are not very well known at all. The museum shop on the Altes Museum's upper floor now displays around 50 objects distributed in 10 exhibition cases. On show are previously exhibited, well-known finds, such as the burial complex of the island Syros (an Early Bronze Age burial complex with outstanding stone vessels), Cycladic idols, anthropomorphic terracotta and bronze statuettes, a Late Bronze Age tomb complex from the Değirmentepe necropolis at Miletus. Alongside them however some unusual, peculiar vessels, masterpieces of Late Bronze Age pottery and several items of jewellery.

The National Gallery's collection features several important works by Hans-Peter Feldmann. The artist recently made a donation to the National Gallery of his key work, Die Toten ('The Dead').

In 1967 Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead at a demonstration in West Berlin. The escalation of violence and terrorism in the years that followed led to more than 100 people loosing their lives. The full scale of this violence and the true death toll has never really sunk into the public consciousness.

Starting in the late 1960s, Hans-Peter Feldmann spent years collecting images of the dead, culled from print media with near archival fastidiousness. The photocopies of newspaper photographs on grey A3 sheets bear depictions of police officers, hostages, terrorists and members of the general public who all lost their lives. A legend under each picture gives the names and the dates on which the individuals died. Additional information is provided separately as to the age, status and cause of death of the deceased.

In this work, the artist aims 'to view the events of the recent past from a certain distance and to draw attention to the sheer scale of events.' The work thus directly confronts viewers with the deaths of real people as a consequence of terror.

Caravaggio
Choreography: Mauro Bigonzetti
Music: Bruno Moretti
Set and Light design: Carlo Cerri
Costume design: Kristopher Millar
Lois Swandale

Paul Connelly, conductor
Orchestra Staatskapelle Berlin

Solisten und Corps de ballet des Staatsballetts Berlin

Mauro Bigonzetti is one of the leading choreographers of the Italian ballet which freed itself from the predominance of mainly classical opera companies in the 1980’s. He created his choreographies mainly for the Aterballetto in Reggio Emilia that helped him to fame and worldwide attention. “When I think of Caravaggio, I think of the artist and the human being at the same time. These are the two sides of the human existence that interest me in particular. The relations of these two worlds are the inspiration for this work: the inner world on the one hand – and how it evolves artistically on the other.”

Mauro Bigonzetti developed Caravaggio in collaboration with the Staatsballett Berlin.