The Caspar David Friedrich craze
It's a wrap! With the Easter weekend over, the anniversary exhibition Caspar David Friedrich. Art for a New Era officially came to an end and it is time to look back and reflect this exciting time.
In recent weeks and months, we have devoted ourselves to the art of our favourite Romantic artist, whose famous painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is housed in the Hamburger Kunsthalle - our home turf. This and many other paintings and drawings by the artist attracted a total of more than 325,000 visitors from all over the world, making it not only a record number of visitors, but also the most successful exhibition in the history of the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
The 250th anniversary of Caspar David Friedrich's birthday can certainly be described as a hype that will be felt in various other exhibitions and events in Germany in the course of the year. The special feature of the Hamburg exhibition: in addition to numerous works from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, 20 contemporary artists were on display, some of which were based on Friedrichs Oeuvre and/or approached the relationship between humankind and nature in the same way as the painter did.
The adventure began with a grand opening and a speech by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was also the patron of this exhibition.
Of course, the CDF hype did not leave us, of the association Freunde der Kunsthalle e. V., untouched – we’ve acquired more than 3.000 new members!
This was reflected in the response we’ve received from a wide variety of channels. Not only were the museum's time slot tickets completely sold out, but so were our guided tours - what a positively challenging feeling.
As the Young Friends of the Kunsthalle, we (Shanice, Hannah and Laura) were well involved: helping hands were welcome in all areas.
For example the special opening we could arrange in December, when the Hamburger Kunsthalle opened its doors to the anniversary exhibition on a Monday exclusively for our members. This was the opportunity especially for those who wanted to escape the usual streams of visitors. We Young Friends were on site with our Bar 1923, where we served our Sparkling 100 cocktail - specially created to celebrate our association's anniversary in 2023.
After booking time slots for guided tours months in advance, we got started with our Young Friends events in January. We were delighted by the high level of interest and the good New Year's resolutions, which led to our available slots being quickly filled up. No wonder, as our series of guided tours started with a classic tour by Shanice and Hannah, which examined the highlights of the exhibition from different perspectives and also focused on the artist's working methods.
In February, we invited the young members of the Bucerius Kunst Club to visit us as part of our friendliest format Chez Amis, which has now taken place for the third time in three years and always leads to lively mutual exchanges on the occasion of exhibitions worth seeing. After a brief general introduction, we explored with Laura the first floor and took a closer look at Friedrich's classical works together with the neighbouring circle of friends, before moving on to the contemporary positions on the second floor with Shanice.
In March, our small series of guided tours culminated with Hannah's tour KmK! Caspar meets climate, which focused exclusively on the contemporary positions and highlighted climate policy aspects in particular.
After many hours spent amongst paintings and drawings of Friedrich and his contemporary peers, this exhibition hast left a wanderer-shaped imprint on us, which we will carry with us for a long time to come. We are very thankful to have experienced this once-in-a-lifetime-exhibition.