Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-33

Featuring more than 75 illustrations, Magic Realism presents five thematic essays on the social and artistic spaces of Weimar culture. 'The Circus' examines artistic depictions of transgression, against the backdrop of mass entertainment; 'The Street and the Studio' demonstrates the inter-connections between public and private spaces in treatment and subject matter; the significant upsurge in religious feeling is reviewed in 'Faith'; while 'The Cabaret' returns to the irreverent, presenting the unusual characters of the underground.
Although the term ‘magic realism’ is today commonly associated with the literature of Latin America, it was inherited from the artist and critic Franz Roh who invented it in 1925 to describe a shift from the art of the expressionist era, towards cold veracity and unsettling imagery. The exhibition Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-33 at Tate Modern explores the diverse practices of a number artists, including Otto Dix, George Grosz, Albert Birkle and Jeanne Mammen.