Putting anger into perspective

About the exhibition "Paul Gauguin. Why are you angry?" which runs until 10 July 2022 at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

After all, his most famous paintings were produced over a period of ten years, from 1891 to 1901, while he was in Polynesia after leaving his wife and children. And they are much talked about today, as their eroticism is re-examined in the light of feminism and post-colonial debates. Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is nevertheless one of the pioneers of modern art, and the idea of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, in association with the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, to confront his "colonial exoticism" with works by contemporary artists offers some really interesting perspectives on paintings that we thought we knew by heart. In this exhibition, for example, we come across Angela Tiatia from New Zealand and Australia, Yuki Kihara from Japan, Nashashibi Skaer from Great Britain and Henri Hiro from French Polynesia. Juxtaposing the works with historical material from Gauguin's past and present, but also with international contemporary art, makes it possible to recontextualise a phase of creation, and to question the myth of Gauguin's self-created wild artist. The title of this Berlin exhibition, "Paul Gauguin. Why are you angry?" is inspired by the title of the very theatrical painting that opens the exhibition: "No te aha oe riri (Why are you angry?)".