A cordial invitation to the opening of the exhibition “Open your minds at last!" Dada as political art between the world wars
on Saturday, May 9, 2026 at 18:00
With greetings from
- Dr. Jürgen Kaumkötter, Director of Center for Persecuted Arts
- Sebastian Haug, Member of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia
- Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wilhelm, Deputy Chairman of the Rhineland Regional Assembly
- Dr. Katharina Günther, curator of Center for Persecuted Arts
The exhibition can then be viewed and we invite you to a reception with drinks.
Anti-bourgeois, anarchist and pacifist Dada practiced social criticism with a sharp eye and biting satire, questioned prevailing values as well as political and social conditions and dynamics, especially those that had led to the catastrophe of the First World War. Founded in 1916 during the war, although the end of the movement is located in the early 1920s, artists such as George Grosz, Hannah Höch and John Heartfield However, later they also fought against the emerging National Socialism with the means of art. The National Socialists regard Dada as “degenerate.”
The art of Dadaists is colorful, loud — and by no means uniform. They used a wide variety of styles and produced Literature, poetry, stage plays, paintings, graphics, collages and photographs. But politics is a central common denominator that runs like a common thread through the movement's work and is expressed in various and unexpected ways. Celebrate our 110th birthday “Open your minds at last!“ the Dada art movement and shows the topicality of its political commitment.
The exhibition is until September 13, 2026 to see. The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalog published by Hirmer-Verlag. With essays by Katharina Günther, Hanne Bergius, Lucy Byford, Agathe Mareuge and “Let's do it a Dada” by Jürgen Joseph Kaumkötter.
The exhibition is supported by the Gerd Kaimer Citizens' Foundation Solingen, the Kunststiftung NRW and the Regional Cultural Funding of the LVR.
