Visual experiments on stage

This exhibition was programmed on the occasion of the opening of the Stadsschouwburg (City Theater) in Eindhoven, and was about the relations between theater and the visual arts, and in particular how one endeavored to renew the 20th century theater by connecting to equal attempts in the visual arts. Starting point was the major role that visuals artist since the turn of the century played in this renewal of the theater. Aim was to give an representative overview of these meaningful visual artists and their influence on the theater discipline. The common approach of theater before the turn of the century was that of a semi-historical, illusionizing realism to be watched passively by the audience. The idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk and the related unity of different artistic means of expression, came as a protest against this traditional approach on theater: The aim of modern theater was to create a suggestion, in order to activate the public's own creative imagination. This search of expressive totality took the form of a 'commitment to the absolute' in which the visual arts fused with the theater and other artistic expressions. This fusion and unity of artistic expressions were essential to this renewal in theater. Visual avant garde artists were invited to design decors, instead of the professional décor designers, in order to free the theater from the 'academism' and to introduce on stage what was already discovered in the visual arts and other expressions. Movements: Russian Impressionists and Symbolists, German Impressionists, Ballets Russes. After WWI: Russian Constructivists, Italian Futurists, Utilitarian Art, Bauhaus. (Janna E. Adriaanse, 2015). - Restrictie: catalogus VAM (TA doos 30) uitgeleend 1 sep 2021 voor vitrines bij collectiepresentatie Dwarsverbanden