The Albertinum in Dresden has opened the special exhibition “The Great Drama. Auguste Rodin and the Dispute over Modernity” has opened. According to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden the exhibition runs until 22 August 2027. Around 100 exhibits bring the museum’s outstanding collection in Germany into focus: on display are plaster casts, sculptures, medals, photographs and handwritten documents by Auguste Rodin, as well as works by his French and Belgian contemporaries.
The focus is on the vision of the former director of the Sculpture Collection, Georg Treu. As early as the late 19th century, he had acquired works by Rodin for Dresden, helping to set an early course for a new kind of sculpture. The curators place these acquisitions within a wider cultural-political and aesthetic conflict, which they describe as the “dispute over modernity”. Numerous plaster casts from the collection had not been on public display for decades and are now being presented comprehensively once again for the first time.
The exhibition combines works of art with archival material and scholarly commentary. Letters, files and photographic sources are intended to show how artistic innovations circulated around 1900 and the role Dresden played as a centre for the formation of international collections. Supporters such as the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States and the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation are mentioned in connection with the preparation and realisation of the exhibition.
According to the curators, the presentation aims to show Rodin’s significance for modernity in a nuanced way: focusing less on his famous monuments than on torso forms, plaster models and experimental medals, which offer striking examples of his formal influence. At the same time, the exhibition documents the controversies of the time over public acceptance, museum decisions and the canon of sculpture. The museum makes no forecasts about visitor numbers or economic effects; the focus is on documented collections, the relationships between works and the history of their reception in Germany.
With “The Great Drama. Auguste Rodin and the Dispute over Modernity”, the Albertinum brings together the collections and research of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and builds on the institution’s historical imprint left by Georg Treu. For audiences in Dresden and visitors from further afield, the exhibition offers a richly sourced view of a turning point in European sculpture and of Dresden’s role in this transformation.
Editor: Celestina Fuentes (Article created with AI assistance).