The Rush Of Weimar Berlin
Martin Filler writes: ‘Few modern urban settings have exerted a stronger grip on the popular imagination than Weimar Berlin, typically presented as a nonstop freak show of grotesque transvestites and mutilated war vets, lumpen Brechtian beggars and top-hatted industrialists, Charleston-crazed floozies, effete gigolos, and brazen rent boys. To be sure, this cartoonish image originated in the period’s corrosively satirical art, especially that of George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Max Beckmann, all of whom are represented in the thrilling exhibition “Berlin Metropolis: 1918-1933†at New York’s Neue Galerie, a heady mix of painting, collage, architecture, photography, film, graphic design, and fashion that vividly evokes the creative maelstrom of the German capital during the Weimar Republic.’
