The Kleine Grosz Museum in Berlin will close on November 26, 2024 due to lack of funding. Opening in May 2022, this temporary museum was initially designed to operate for five years.
The private funding on which the institution relies proved insufficient to cover the budget necessary for its proper functioning. Not benefiting from state aid, the museum is in deficit despite the support of the Berliner Sparkasse (an association of the city’s savings banks) and private donors. The staff themselves put their hands in their pockets, reports Berliner Morgenpost. Two exhibitions, however, were supported by the cultural fund of the city of Berlin.
The museum management considers that the results are satisfactory for an ephemeral museum. Indeed, despite the premature closure, the museum recorded attendance higher than the expected average with more than 30,000 visitors in two years, reports the museum management. Of the ten exhibitions planned, five temporary exhibitions were presented. “The Kleine Grosz Museum at the former gas station was temporary. We couldn’t be happier with what we have accomplished because George Grosz is on everyone’s lips again.” explains Ralf Kemper, chairman of the association’s board of directors.
The Kleine Grosz Museum is the first museum dedicated to the work of the German artist George Grosz (1893-1959). Installed in a former gas station in the Schöneberg district, the museum was founded by the George Grosz in Berlin eV association in 2022. Although designed as a temporary structure, it was not excluded that it would be perpetuated by the following. The permanent exhibition located on the ground floor brings together graphic works, photographs, texts and original documents. Temporary exhibitions, organized by guest curators, are held on the museum floor and are based on loans from public museums and private collectors.
George Grosz is an important figure of the New Objectivity and the Dada movement in Berlin. A fervent opponent of the Nazi regime, he joined the Novembergroupa group of communist artists, in 1918. Driven from his hometown in 1933 by the Nazis for his “degenerate art”, the painter and caricaturist joined the United States for several years of exile before returning to Berlin in 1959 , where he dies. “A piece of my world in a world without peace – Collages”, a recent exhibition at the Kleine Grosz Museum, looked back on the collages made by the artist during his years of exile.
Visitors can currently discover the temporary exhibition “What are these eras?” Grosz, Brecht & Piscator” which traces the artistic collaboration between Grosz, Bertolt Brecht and the revolutionary director Erwin Piscator. The three artists worked together on the staging of the play The Adventures of the Brave Soldier Schwejk by Jaroslav Hašek in 1927. Several ink on paper from the production of the play, produced by George Grosz, are on display there. The exhibition is open until the museum closes.