The New Ensemble presents CHESAPEAKE just in time for presidential primaries.

• *The Crucible at GCP
• *Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the Spotlight in Bakersfield.
• *The Illusion at FCC
• *Les Miserables at CMT
• *Skin Deep at GCP
• *Drowsy Chaperone at GCP
• *The Light in the Piazza at Stageworks Fresno (alas, I missed Ragtime)
• *Hamlet at the Spotlight Theater in Bakersfield
• *Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, directed by Leslie Mitts Martin

A few local Rogue Festival offerings were terrific this year, so honorable mention goes to Nic Tempesta’s entry, “Love, Art and Sexual Perversity” and, as always, favorite regional theater status goes to Shakespeare Santa Cruz and now The Independent Shakespeare Company in L.A.

Go see theater in 2012! Woot.

~HP
{tne}

And yes, I do attend regional theater productions when I can (Shakespeare Santa Cruz is an all-time fave). I do try to take in a play in L.A. or San Francisco when I go.  I absolutely keep an eye on what is being produced on stages in NYC or London. . .

But I often draw inspiration from the local productions around me.  People who are often in very similar circumstances as I am in and are doing wonderful work.  Sometimes they are trying very hard to grow a company very quickly into something spectacular. Sometimes they are scraping up from the independent ranks with their own limited resources (much like {tne} is). Sometimes they are running well-established theaters but are taking a chance on small, little known work or a classic here and there.

And in that last category is one of my faves:  Bakersfield’s Spotlight Theater.

I’m a little fuzzy on the Spotlight’s history, but I know it has been fighting its way through the Bakersfield theater scene for several years and now presents a full season of main stage productions in its 99 seat proscenium in downtown Bakersfield– standards such as Into the Woods and Evita along with newer titles like Spring Awakening for 2011-2012, and occasionally a Shakespeare or a literary classic of the non-musical variety.

And a few seasons ago, they began the Spotlight Series, a collection of stripped down intimate productions focusing on the language and action of straight drama, such as The Pillowman, A Picasso, and this season Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Talented Mr. Ripley. 

Yesterday, I attended the final performance of “Dr. Jekyll”, a cloistered, atmospheric and highly effective staging by Spotlight’s artistic director Jarred Clowes, and it is exactly the kind of inspiration that I love to receive as an artist.  Rather than comparing what I would do as a director with this script, I allow myself to get lost in another director’s point of view, his vision of the script.  I am compelled to get swept up in the performance and to be shocked, to empathize, to be surprised and to feel the story along with the actors.  The kind of inspiration I love is the kind that insists that I ignore the brush-strokes I may be able to see and just be fed by other local artists. To recognize and delight in the moments that they create for their community– the community of people in that room at that moment.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was some of the best work I’ve seen in a while– it was so well thought-out and and so fully executed, I hope that they can make their little dream of “taking it on the road” happen.  But in the meantime, I thank Clowes and his team for continuing to play so very seriously and effectively.

I think it would an “opportunity for awesome” if Fresno and Bakersfield could begin sharing or swapping some of their productions with each other, so we can be inspired by each other and encourage each other in their work.

We should all be so lucky!

Heather Parish

Artistic Director, {tne}

We hope you’ll join us in 2012 for another round of thought-provoking yet entertaining theater of ideas. . . we’ve got some very compelling titles on our season:  Chesapeake by Lee Blessing, Hamlet, Baptized to the Bone by Dave Johnson, and Bug by Tracy Letts.

The “opportunities for awesome” abound!

2.  Keep it casual– allow the audience and actors to mingle before the show and during the intermission (if you have one).  They all love it.

3.  Give them something to bond over– like the noises from the cafe venue or the heat in the tiny theater with a tinier air conditioner.

4.  Sell water (see #1 and #3).

5. (and most importantly) Cast exceptional actors and then let them do what they know how to do.

Last night’s reading of “In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play”, during TNE’s FREE PRIZE INSIDE SHOWCASE WEEKENDS, was a stunning success. We greeted twice the number of patrons as we expected and they all endured the hot little black box theater and cramped seating (it’s part of the charm of the Broken Leg Stage– that feeling that you’re all in this together!), and the feedback was tremendous.

Of course, Sarah Ruhl’s beautiful words and exceptional story had much to do with it.  It is simply an exquisite play.  And because it is an exquisite play I did what I could to bring on board some of the finest talent the area has to offer– including Gabriela Lawson, Brooke Aiello, and Jaguar Bennett (regular players with Woodward Shakespeare Festival), Eric Orum and Kristin Lyn Crase (both having leads in successful shows at Good Company Players this year) and various members of the TNE troupe.

And why is that so important?  After all, if the play is so exceptional, couldn’t it speak on its own?

Of course it could!  Don’t be a dolt.  But eventually the thing will need to be spoken by actual human beings, hopefully by smart ones.

So I gathered these actors for a simple, one-time table read of the play earlier in the week.  Explained that it would be a straightforward  sit-and-read, and instructed them to review the script another time before coming to the theater on Friday.  End of story.  (Talented actors are also busy actors and a quick prep for a reading helps keep them available for readings.).

But something extraordinary happened at the top of Friday evening during set up.  We got into the space, began to set up the chairs for a typical static reading of this lovely play, and everyone seemed to realize that it just wasn’t going to work. It would have been fine– funny and intelligent– that way.  But perhaps a little cerebral.  And after some discussion and a little brainstorming, I did something a director usually hates to do.

I stepped out.

I had to, actually.  Being a small company, I was also handling box office set up and it had been neglected.  So, I had to turn it over to this group of seven actors to figure out.  When I came back in, the few props I had brought for set decoration were set up for practical use.  The chairs were divided into two rooms.  A chair was set aside for a piano bench.  The actors were mingling with guests, calm as could be.

Then, we started the reading.  And these talented actors improvised the entire staging of this reading off the top of their heads.  They agreed on the parameters; they watched each other’s movement to make quick and decisive choices on their own.  And by standing up and sitting down and crossing when they felt they needed to, they were more open and more affected by the words Sarah Ruhl had written.

That’s not to say that there weren’t clusters along the way, but -truth be told- the audience seemed to like watching them work it out as they went along. They improvised a staged reading on the spot, like pros.  And many of the reading performances that came out of those actors were worthy of the script and showed exactly what talented actors can do when they HAVE to do it and there isn’t anything standing in their way.

Like a director.  DirWRECKting.

I felt proud and redundant simultaneously.  It just reinforced my idea that directors are first and foremost facilitators: midwives.  We can get all conceptual with designers, and we often need to shape the story and work with actors on certain ways of telling it.  But ultimately, if you believe you have the best cast you can get for that play at that time, and you’ve prepared them as well as you possibly can with the time you have, there comes a point where you need to get out of the way and let them do what they know how to do.

Thus, #5.  (And the reason that I love actors).

Heather Parish

Artistic Director, TNE

“There’s a famine of the spirit your country, as there is a famine of the body in mine.  You need to feed your famine with art as I need to feed mine with food.“ ~Mother Teresa.

“Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. “ ~Pablo Picasso

“Without the arts, no one would be normal.” ~anonymous Balinese man on the Travel Channel

But the classic is this passage from “Shakespeare in Love”

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman: How?

Philip Henslowe: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

The New Ensemble knows the truth of this.  In our first year of producing plays, The New Ensemble has gone from one person’s pet project (under Madwoman’s Attic Ensemble) to a core group of like-minded actors, and is now preparing to welcome guest directors and operate as a working administrative board of actor-managers. Along the way, we’ve not known where the money, the audiences, the casting pool, or often, the drive was going to come from.  But somehow, it usually arrived.

The growth over four productions (Turn of the Screw, Good Night Desdemona, The Pillowman, and A Picasso) and a successful series of play readings (Red, August: Osage County and Dead Man’s Cell Phone) has been dizzying.  As a group of approximately ten individuals, we’ve pulled together to get each production off the ground and completed successfully.

That an arts organization managed to get to its first year, through five projects, and see an anniversary in these economic times truly is a cause for celebration.  Roughly 15% of arts organizations that were in existence three years ago have shut their doors completely, while over 50% of the remaining organizations have tightened belts, cut staff, programming, and production budgets.

But, at the same time, the door is wide open for bare-bones, locally grown cultural entertainment to emerge to fill in the gaps in the larger cultural organization’s offerings.

And that’s where The New Ensemble found fertile ground.

Choosing entertainment elevated by great ideas in the scripts, TNE invited people into a seriously entertaining world.  Serious and Entertaining. We brought forward plays with terrific ideas, excellently written and thoughtfully acted, for people who wanted to consider their place in the world in these serious times.  But we never forget those aspects of entertainment that are so engaging to audiences—humor, silliness, bravery and emotion.

We’ve had our missteps, for certain.  We’ve had to cancel productions, replace others, shift schedules. . . these are the growing pains of a group coming together and creating something lasting.  Going into our second season, we’re looking at those “productive failures” and establishing new ways of collaboration, new community partnerships, and an entirely new way of creating a cultural voice in our community.

And now, in celebration of one year of successful productions, we’re allowing ourselves a few weekends of silliness before we get back to the serious business of play.

In The Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) is a hot title fresh off of stages in New York and Los Angeles and will make for a fun and vibrant (no pun intended!) comedy reading for our ensemble.

Shipwrecked: An Entertainment is another great title being picked up by major theaters all over the US for its sheer delight in comic storytelling.

And The TNE Variety Shows feature original sketches, monologues and off-beat musical selections from the The New Ensemble members.  We’re serious about plays.   And for a while, we’re playful about serious things.

We hope you enjoy some laughter, some thoughtfulness, and some locally grown creativity.

As ever,

Heather Parish

Founding Artistic Director, TNE

www.newensemble.com for full information on the TNE Free Prize Inside Comedy Showcase Weekends!

Theater?

Yup!  These days, June, July and August and early September are some of the busiest theater production months in this town.  It is a shift that has gradually changed with the advent of the summer Shakespeare festival in 2005 and the growth of several smaller companies in the area– many of whom work with teachers as some of their most dedicated actors.  I’ve counted 10 shows opening in the last six weeks alone along the Fresno-Visalia corridor. (There isn’t really a “corridor”, I just named it that!).  Those shows have ranged from classic musicals, to Shakespearean comedy, to acclaimed contemporary dramas.

These days, there really is something for everybody being produced on a regular basis.  In fact, there is often so much going on that you can’t really see everything.  Even if you had the money, you won’t always have the time.  But that’s okay. . . don’t let that stop you from seeing the shows you really want to see.  The diversity and depth of theatrical offerings in Fresno is entirely dependent upon local audiences supporting local creativity.

In the next few weeks, here are a few of your theatrical options:

ONGOING:

Skin Deep at the Good Company Players’ Second Space.  This comedy with a situation has received widespread praise for its outstanding performances and the excellent direction of J. Daniel Herring.  Reservations are recommended as several of their performances have sold out.  Runs until August 7.
www.gcplayers.com 

CLOSING this weekend:

Three Tall Women by Edward Albee, presented by California Public Theater.
Fridays & Saturdays @ 8pm, Sundays @ 2pm
The Voice Shop
1296 North Wishon Avenue, Fresno.
$12 at the door.

OPENING  this weekend:

Hello, Dolly! presented by CenterStage Clovis Community Theater
July 21-23 & 28-30 @ 7:30pm
July 30 @ 2:00pm
$15
www.centerstageclovis.com 

The Drowsy Chaperone presented by Good Company Players at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater
Quirky, smart and just a huge amount of fun, TDC won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Score and Best Book (the book was co-written by Don McKellar, who may be known to theater fans as the fabulously pretentious director Darren Nichols on “Slings and Arrows”– he’s an amazing all-around theater talent).
July 21 – September 11, 2011
Call 266-9494 or 800-371-4747 or go to www.gcplayers.com for information on showtimes and prices.

Rent, presented by The Fourth Wall Theater Company
This is the first fully staged  (non-junior) production of the rock-musical Rent in the Fresno-Visalia area.  It boasts some terrific regional talent and promises to create some buzz in Visalia, so buy your tix in advance.
July 22, 23, 29, 30 at 8pm
July 24, 31 at 2pm
Main Street Theater (aka The Enchanted Playhouse), 307 E. Main Street, Visalia.
$15.
http://rentvisalia.com/ 

And for you Fresno peeps, check out some of Visalia’s terrific eateries Downtown before the show– the theater is very convenient to Brewbakers, Henry Salazar’s, Fugazzi (the original), and several others.   http://www.downtownvisalia.com/restaurants

Coming Up:

Organic Theater Factory is back in action with Glory Days, a lesser known Broadway musical from 2008. One of the new breed of musicals using a small cast and more stripped down production values, The OTF showcases four amazingly talented young men and their ability to straight out perform.  Go to www.otffresno.com for more information.  Runs  July 28-August 7 at The Voice Shop on Wishon Row in the Tower District.

Woodward Shakespeare Festival presents its first non-Shakespearean production at the 13 Acre Stage in Woodward Park.  “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller will run July 28 – August 13, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8pm. FREE (after you pay $5 per car to enter the Park). www.woodwardshakespeare.org

And there are even more coming up in August, including The New Ensemble’s latest offering “Shooting Star”.

See you at the theater this summer!

Heather Parish
Founding Director.

Image via Wikipedia

In an earlier blog post, we discussed the historical context of Picasso’s masterwork, “Guernica“.  Now lets take a look at the painting itself, which has a plot turning role in “A Picasso”.

It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise
it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words!
The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols
as they understand them. – Pablo Picasso

 

Considered a progenitor of Modern Art and an originator of Cubism, there were nonetheless several recurrent themes in Picasso’s work. Instead of using traditional battle imagery as visual inspiration for Guernica, Picasso turned to the familiar arena of the Spanish bullring. Picasso was only three when his father took him to his first bullfight. The brutal choreography — fierce power and inevitable tragedy — had obsessed him since.

 
According to art historian Patricia Failing: “The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the
specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso’s career.”

 
In his studio Picasso kept a large wicker mask of a bull and often played out scenes from the bullring. Is the bull Picasso himself? The artist, gazing helpless and horrified at the surrounding holocaust? Do the horse and the bull represent
the fight between Loyalists and Nationalists, the stalwart Spanish people and Franco’s brutal regime?

 
Or the ongoing struggle between the female and male, perhaps a reflection of the artist’s personal life? Was the enemy evident in the work, or were all of the subjects victims?

 
“Sometimes the bull is seen as a symbol of Spain, as a symbol of the virtues and the values of Spain and Spanish culture,” says Failing.

 
“Sometimes the relationship is one of gender and a sort of masculine force and feminine force. Sometimes it’s a relationship of aggressor to something more passive. Sometimes it’s a relationship between darkness and light. So the bull can be the good guy, or the bull can be the bad guy, depending on which interpretation you happen to dig up in your in your survey of reactions to Guernica.”

 
In the past, Picasso has also drawn the bull in the form of the Minotaur — a mythological creature, half beast, half human — his thinly veiled alter ego in a battle of the sexes with the women in his life. His earlier works are filled with bulls and Minotaurs charging, goring, killing, raping. But many also depict bulls as the victims of suffering. Standing enigmatically in the background, the bull in Guernica was interpreted alternately as the brutish Fascist state and the Spanish people.

 
Picasso never committed to a specific explanation of his symbolism: ”…this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse… If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously.

 
I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.”
The central figure in Guernica is a horse run through with a javelin, wrenched in agony. Some interpreted the horse as Franco’s Nationalism, with Picasso predicting its downfall. But other, opposite meanings make more sense in the overall context. The portrayal of the people as a helpless animal dying a senseless death, without the light of hope, is certainly a disturbing idea.
“Picasso made a very poignant personal statement about the horse in Guernica being connected to the idea of the suffering of the people,” adds Failing. “And since it’s an animal with a big lance wound through its center, certainly that’s a
connection many people would find quite plausible.

 
But Picasso was maddeningly inconsistent about what he had to say about these particular characters, although he didn’t like to say very much at all about them. He knew that it’s better to not say something and allow the interpreters to fill in the space. That gives them something to do. It makes them think about you more.”

 
Years after the completion of Guernica, Picasso was still questioned time and time again about the meaning of the bull and other images in the mural. In exasperation he stated emphatically:

“These are animals, massacred animals. That’s all as far as I’m concerned…” But he did reiterate the painting’s obvious anti-war sentiment: “My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and
the death of art. In the picture I am painting — which I shall call Guernica — I am expressing my horror of the military caste which is now plundering Spain into an ocean of misery and death.”

 
Speculations as to the exact meaning of the tortured images are as numerous and varied as its viewers, and perhaps this was exactly Picasso’s intention. A composition so compelling challenges our most basic notions of war as heroic, unmasking it as a brutal act of self-destruction.

There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun. – Pablo Picasso

We live in a time when art often appears to be an alien language. This statement does not imply that artistic tradition is wholly overlooked, of course. There are artists who produce recognizable, perhaps even beautiful, images out of materials we respect. Some have impeccable command of craft. But more often our expectations are thwarted by confrontations with inappropriate materials and techniques, overwhelming scale, mechanical repetitiveness, blatant politics or sexuality, impermanence, and/or ugliness.

We are confounded by unclear or mixed messages. We are sometimes offended by simplistic or sloppy craftsmanship; We know we could do that. What’s the fuss? What does it all mean, anyway? we ask. Why is this art?

It is helpful if we begin with open minds and acknowledge that thinking is both the requirement – and the pleasure – of meaningful encounters with art. If we let them, the arts invite us to participate variously in pleasure, mayhem, beauty, challenge, insight, sadness, stimulation, inspiration, humor, heightened awareness, disruption, delight, subversion, and so forth.

Picasso's "The Guitar Player", Oil on Canvas, 1910.

In order to understand our observations, consider the following elements while analyzing a modern art piece:

Physical Properties
􀂏 What size is it and how does its height relate to its width?
􀂏 What mediums (paint, charcoal, metal, or neon tubes, etc.) are used?
􀂏 How are they applied (by hand, with brushes, etc.)?
􀂏 What textures result?
􀂏 Is the work two-dimensional or three dimensional?
􀂏 Is it wall mounted or freestanding? Framed or unframed? Does it require a pedestal or does it sit on the floor? Does it have any apparent function?
Subject
􀂏 What is the work about? Though an abstract painting may be less discernible than a landscape or portrait, one may narrow the possibilities.
􀂏 What is the artistic motivation of the work? Is the artist addressing a political, historical, or social concern? What is the artist attempting to express?
Illusionary Properties
How does the artist manipulate perspective, space and light?
Formal Properties
􀂏 How are lines, colors, and shapes arranged to create compositions?
ο Lines may be seen in different widths, curves, geometric shapes and patterns, or may be deliberate or implied.
ο Color may be used conventionally as in nature, or may express emotion. Colors may also create optical and perceptual effects.
ο Shape refers to flat figures (two dimensional). Form refers to modeled or
rendered shapes (three-dimensional). What effect do shapes or forms that are repetitive, symmetrical or asymmetrical, balanced or imbalanced make?  How does an artist organize or structure their work? How does their arrangement determine a viewer’s focus?

Viewer Perspectives
How is the viewer positioned in relationship to the artwork? How does the proximity of the viewer change the intimacy of a work? While large scale works may force a viewer to distance themselves, a small sculpture may require a viewer to stand close to or walk around it.

 
By breaking down our understanding, hopefully we may seek out more frequent intersections between art and ourselves. We may further want instruction in artistic motives and methods; museum staff and art writers, who have made it their purpose to understand, need to explain to the rest of us what is going on in terms and contexts that we can understand.

We may also fight for a higher priority for art in schools, a logical place for the rather simple instruction necessary to make us feel visually literate. While many times viewers may only spend seconds looking at artwork in a museum,  spending that extra moment to discover and observe can lead to a personal and rewarding relationship with modern art.

From “Setting the Stage”
How to Look at Modern Art
By Philip Yenawine

The New Ensemble’s latest play “A Picasso” focuses on the great artist and the how and why of his work and life.   If you’re an art enthusiast– or would like to be one– check out tomorrow night’s Arthop in the Fresno’s Tower District.  At least six spaces within a six block radius are presenting new exhibitions and they’re throwing open their doors for you all to come in and take a look.  

Paul Klee's 'Dream City', pronounced degenerate under the Third Reich.

It was directed against avant-garde tendencies, both national and international, which had developed from the late 19th century.

By 1930, the Minister for Culture and Education, von Thüringen Frick, had already proclaimed his program ‘Against Negro culture— for German national traditions,’ aimed particularly at the Expressionists, and he ordered the removal of 70 paintings from the permanent exhibition of the Schlossmuseum at Weimar. Also in 1930, Hildebrand Gurlitt, the museum director in Zwickau, was dismissed for promoting such artists as Emil Nolde, Heinrich Zille, Ernst Barlach, Otto Dix and others.

In March 1933 Bettina Feistel- Rohmeder, director of the Deutsche Kunstkorrespondenz, called for the removal from the museums of all works revealing ‘cosmopolitan and Bolshevik aspects.’
The purpose of this propaganda was the bringing-in-to-line of the arts within a Nazi state. Art’s only task was to illustrate the ideas of National Socialism and the glorification of the State.

Feistel-Rohmeder demanded the seizure of ‘degenerate works of art.’ Museum directors were either forced out of office or relieved of their duties following the first of defamatory exhibitions of 1933. The Law for the Restoration of Civil Service with Tenure, passed on April 7, 1933, facilitated the dismissal of directors for ‘the promotion of degenerate art’. In October 1936, the ‘temporary’ closure of the modern wing in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin was ordered, though intended to be final. All these actions were arranged and coordinated by the Reich Ministry of the Interior for Information and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels, in conjunction with the Gestapo.

A crowd gathers outside one of the 1937 exhibitions.

In 1937, under the newly elected President of the Reichskammer für Bildende Künste, Professor Adolf Ziegler, a commission was set up to select works for a planned exhibition of EntarteteKunst upon orders from Goebbels.

One day after Hitler opened the first Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst (now the Haus der Kunst),in Munich, the Entartete Kunst exhibition in the Archeologisches Institut in Munich began (July 19, 1937). The skillfully anti-aesthetic hanging and the defamatory commentary on the works did not fail to achieve propagandistic success. In a reduced form, this exhibition toured to Leipzig, Berlin and Düsseldorf (1938), and to Chemnitz, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna (1939).

By August 1937 the wide-scale confiscation of all works of art in museums designated degenerate’ had already begun. According to records, a total of 15,997 works of fine art were confiscated from 101 German museums. This action was justified by the Law on the Confiscation of Products of Degenerate Art, passed belatedly on May 31, 1938. Works affected were those of classical modernity, works by artists of Jewish descent and works of social criticism. Only a few were retained and hidden through the brave maneuvering of individual members of museum staff.

Hitler and Goebbels at the Exhibition

The artists themselves, assuming they had not already left Germany, were forbidden to paint or exhibit. In addition to confiscation, the destruction of murals and architectural monuments, among others, took place. In May 1938, Goebbels instigated the establishment of the Kommission zur Verwertung der Beschlagnahmten Werke Entarteter Kunst. Confiscated works were stored in depots and from there, sold to interested parties abroad (the Nazis hoped for a source of revenue for foreign currency, which was needed for the rearmament program), and sometimes exchanged (Hermann Goering made exchanges with older works of art for his private collection).

In 1939, 125 works were put up for auction in Lucerne, including works by van Gogh, Gauguin, Franz Marc, Macke, Klee, Kokoschka and Lehmbruck. The end of the Aktion entartete Kunst was signalled by the burning of 4829 art works in the courtyard of the Berlin Fire Brigade.

By Anita Kühnel
New York Museum of Modern Art