Exhibition “Green Modernity” in Cologne – when the avant-garde was enthusiastic about plants
Miriam Szwast, curator of the exhibition: “That means we don’t use the plastic letters that we used to have, which might look great but are of course not recyclable. And here you can swipe over it later. And that is really very hard work. We’re all observing it and at the same time we’re controlled, but then how great it actually goes with the exhibition.”
For two years, Miriam Szwast and her colleagues in the sustainability team have been developing ideas on how careful use of resources can also be reflected in museum work. The results have been incorporated into a sustainability concept, which – also painted by hand – can be read in green letters for all visitors to see: For example, the building was completely converted to green electricity, there is a green roof terrace and no CO2-releasing art transport was used. You have also entered new territory here without having to go far, because almost all the exhibits come from the company’s own depot.
“And then we started to trawl through the collection and found a surprising amount: Namely, that modernity was greener than we actually thought, for example the cactus was a very, very popular plant, and it really was a mass-produced article in Germany .”
Tamed wilderness in a flower pot
The art historian Prof. Rainer Stamm: “The cactus was, I would say in intellectual circles, in those circles that felt modern and also wanted to present themselves, like a cult plant. We find the cactus in photography, in the still life painting of the New Objectivity, of course in modern apartments and households in modern architecture as a cactus window. It really was a symbol plant of a time.”
According to Stamm, a symbolic plant that replaced the Biedermeier longing for the small flowering primrose. The director of the State Museum for Art and Cultural History in Oldenburg contributed a text about the plant cult of the 1920s for the exhibition catalogue, which by the way is only available online to save resources:
“Of course you could already get an impression of the plants in the botanical garden. Shortly before the turn of the century, the cactus found its way into botanical collections everywhere. But that’s what’s special, and that’s what’s special: there were also specialized shops and breeding operations, with ‘Kakteen-Haage’ leading the way in Erfurt. A company that still exists today, that actually sent out cacti catalogues, provided seedlings, seeds, printed brochures on how to deal with these distant, foreign houseplants.”
The gallery owner Rosa Schapire knew that too. A photo in the exhibition shows her living room, where small boards are inserted between the double windows, on which cacti stand on several floors. It was the tamed wilderness that ended up in the flower pot. Cacti, agaves, rubber trees – they all embodied the longing for the exotic. Colorful paintings by Otto Dix, among others, bear witness to this, as does a postcard from the tropical ballroom of Cologne’s Flora in 1928, where the guests sat at tables under palm trees.
Carnivorous plants as a symbol of insecurity
Karl Blossfeld’s black and white photo of a poppy seed pod and Aenne Biermann’s close-up of a cactus contrast with an image that also reflects the zeitgeist. Miriam Szwast:
“Curt Backeberg was a so-called cactus hunter who also wrote a book ‘Cactus Hunts Between Texas and Patagonia’. And in this book you will find several pictures. One thing we show: a man in white gear, acting a bit like a big game hunter, standing next to a cactus that is many meters high and also has one of his boots placed on the cactus like a dead animal. Somehow he’s standing there very proud next to this giant cactus, which is also very old and plays a very central role in Mexico, for example. The cactus is there on the flag to this day. So all of that was negated, it was cleared in order to bring the cacti to Germany, among other things.”
An expression of colonialism, the bizarre flowering shoot. An excerpt from “Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens” from 1922 is bizarre and also spooky. Here, for the first time, a carnivorous plant makes its big appearance.
“It’s a short sequence showing a carnivorous plant, a Venus flytrap, closing and eating a fly. And that’s very interesting, because it’s been observed for a long time. But for a long time it was not possible in people’s minds to accept that a plant eats an animal, but the eating order was different. In this respect, it was really negated for a long time.”
Fascinating insights, new worlds of images
The growing knowledge about plants, delayed since Darwin, also unsettled people at the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, microscopy provided new, fascinating insights into the components of plants. They now came into focus as scientists – and inspired many artists.
“That is the great discovery and shock. I would like to say quickly, it was the beginning of the 20th century with the introduction of time-lapse movies. Well, the new media, photography and film have really led to a revaluation of the plant in the public consciousness. And here we see a screen showing a nature film by Wilhelm Pfeffer, a small sequence, a time-lapse film, pressed for three days in a few seconds, and we see two plants that seem to be dancing, that are moving, what’s up with that would not be so visible to the naked eye, but BECOMES visible in time lapse.”
The philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote at the time: “Whether we accelerate the growth of a plant with time lapse or show its shape in forty times magnification – in both cases a geyser of new visual worlds hisses up in places of existence we least thought of.”
Benjamin can probably also do Max Reichmann’s 1926 film “The Miracle of Flowers”, which wowed people with its time-lapse shots and dancing flower girls. Reichmann uses laboratory photos from BASF. At that time, the company also produced artificial fertilizers to accelerate the growth of grain and documented their research on film. The artificial fertilizer was a weapon against the rampant famine after the world war, but also triggered another catastrophe.
“And in 1921 this artificial fertilizer store or silo near Ludwigshafen, where BASF is still located today, exploded because it is highly explosive. And that is, I think, one of the biggest industrial accidents in Germany to date. Also 2,000 people were injured, I think 800 died. It was a crater 18 meters deep and tens of meters in diameter. The American press reported, it’s going around the world, it was a catastrophe.”
Spotlight on delimited gender roles
In art, plants continue to be used as ornaments: flowers as adornment are now also appearing as tattoos: a photo shows a man’s tattooed back, decorated with an expansive flower arrangement. And flowers highlight gender roles, which are differentiated and blurred, at least in the big cities. For example, the exhibition “Die Grüne Moderne” draws attention to the Danish painter and transgender pioneer Lili Elbe, who grew up as a boy.
“Lili Elbe was a woman who was one of the first people to have sex reassignment surgery. This photo from 1928 was also taken two years before this operation. And with this flowery dress she wears, she clearly shows who she is and how she defines herself.” Liliy Elbe, who also emphasized her female identity with flower dresses, stared in Germany in 1931 at the consequences of the fourth operation.
“Conversely, we have a shot of Nijinsky, the dancer, dancing a rose in ballet, Le Specter de la Rose.” That was also a theme, so in ballet it was unusual for a man to embody a flower. In addition, he really opened up the clichés and gender stereotypes in ballet. He’s wearing a pink costume, he’s dancing, here in this picture you look just wonderful, how that is superimposed, this muscular man’s body with the delicacy of this costume and the embodiment of the rose.”
The dissolution of gender roles makes it clear how close we are to the epoch of “Green Modernity” and that the “New View of Plants” a hundred years ago is still having an effect today. And the Cologne exhibition organizers show that it is an ideal topic for providing impetus for future museum work with a sustainable concept.