Part of the Struggle

Rarely in modern times has art been more intimately involved with the social and political world than during the years of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Expressionism, the vanguard movement before the First World War, created works of spiritual vitality with a strong emotional content. The Expressionists believed that an artistic revolution could help bring about social and political change by transforming the individual. Realism was rejected in favor of a subjective search for an inner reality. But the horror of the First World War and the subsequent political turmoil in Germany thrust many artists into a new relationship with society. The Weimar Republic was formed in 1919 and collapsed in 1933 with Hitler's accession to power. Part of the Struggle focuses on the relationship between avant-garde art and left-wing politics during a period of unprecedented social and economic upheaval. It looks in detail at artists based in Dresden and the formation of such political art movements as the Red Group in 1923 and the Association of Revolutionary Artists in 1928. The film uses a minimum of commentary and the artists' own words are heard in dramatized 'interviews' in which actors portray Georg Grosz, Otto Dix, Hans and Lea Grundig and Otto Nagel. It covers the Dada explosion, the abortive German revolution, when Dix, Grosz and Heartfield joined the Spartacists, the move away from Dada towards Verism and the Neue Sachlichkeit (the 'New Objectivity'), and finally the Nazis' infamous exhibition of these artists' work as 'degenerate art.'

'For one seeking information about the Weimar era in art and politics, this is one of those titles that belongs in both public and educational libraries. Part of the Struggle will probably find a grateful audience in high school students through adults seeking to understand conditions following the First World War. Recommended.' Video Rating Guide for Libraries, USA