KOKOSCHKA’S ADENAUER. WARHOL’S BRANDT.

Even at the time they were created, both paintings caused a huge public stir – despite the fact that they were not intended for use as the official portraits in the gallery of the Federal Chancellery, but were commissioned on the private initiative of gallery owners to support charitable causes.

For both Adenauer and Brandt, this charitable purpose seemed more important than meeting the artists, who were already regarded as superstars of the art world at that time. And this was despite the fact that both politicians had a distinct relationship with art of their own – albeit very different from one another.

Konrad Adenauer loved 15th- and 16th-century painting and collected works from the Dutch, Flemish and Italian schools. He was regarded as an excellent connoisseur of classical music. From Adenauer’s few remarks on art in general, it is clear that he understood art in the context of religion, as a means of introspection and contemplation, of transcendence and faith, and also as a counterpoint to the fast-paced nature of politics. He tended to be rather sceptical of contemporary art, and initially of Kokoschka as well.

Willy Brandt was the exact opposite. He did not collect art, but made it a personal priority of his politics to foster the arts. He advocated the establishment of a federal art collection and surrounded himself with artists who were very fond of him because of this commitment. Willy Brandt’s circle included Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll, Georg Meistermann, Marc Chagall, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Ernst and also Christo, whose project to wrap the Reichstag he had already strongly supported in the 1970s, when Christo’s idea still seemed hopelessly utopian.

Neither for Adenauer nor for Brandt did the encounters with Kokoschka and Warhol have a decisive influence on these fundamental approaches to art. Nevertheless, they are more than just entertaining episodes, for they offer an insight into a period of history in which art and politics were still far more diametrically opposed spheres than they are today, and their protagonists rarely cultivated close relationships with one another.

This exhibition is dedicated to the two stories behind the portraits and thus not only to the particular tension between them, but also to the dialogue between art and politics, artists and politicians, which, at its best, contributes to openness, mutual understanding and a rapprochement between the two spheres.