A poignant exhibition at the Musée national Picasso-Paris
From 18 February to 25 May 2025, the Musée national Picasso-Paris presents ‘Degenerate’ art. The trial of modern art under Nazism’, an exceptional exhibition devoted to the violent campaign of artistic repression orchestrated by Hitler’s regime in the 1930s. A powerful, political and deeply moving museum event.
When art becomes a crime
Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime waged open war on the avant-garde. Modern artists were accused of perverting the German soul, betraying the race, embodying a decadence from elsewhere. Under the infamous label of ‘degenerate art’, more than 20,000 works were removed from museums, confiscated, destroyed or resold.
The Entartete Kunst exhibition, held in Munich in 1937, was the high point. Nearly 700 works were exhibited in a humiliating display designed to provoke rejection. Two million visitors attended, fascinated and propagandised.
A strong display, a structured narrative
At the Musée Picasso, this story is told through a hundred or so works, rare documents and moving personal accounts. The tour begins with George Grosz, Paul Klee, Vassily Kandinsky, Otto Dix, Marc Chagall and Picasso, all of whom were banned from the museum.
Each work exhibited was labelled as ‘abnormal’, ‘sick’, ‘Bolshevik’ or ‘Jewish’. We rediscover, among others:
Metropolis by George Grosz, a chaotic symbol of a modern society in crisis.
- Metropolis by George Grosz, a chaotic symbol of a modern society in crisis.
- Picasso’s seated nude wiping his foot, compared by the Nazis to medical anomalies.
- Klee’s Sumpflegende, mocked for its childlike forms and deemed ‘dangerous’ to the German spirit.
An exhibition with strong historical value
The exhibition goes far beyond an aesthetic display. It also analyses the pseudo-scientific discourse of ‘degeneration’, which arose in the 19th century and was recuperated by Nazi ideologists. We read poignant letters from artists who were exiled or silenced.
A particularly striking space is devoted to the rediscovery of sculptures buried in Berlin, found in 2010: fragments of memory that literally re-emerge from the rubble.
The final section looks at the black market in ‘degenerate’ art. While these works were despised in Germany, they paradoxically became objects of international speculation. A paradox that raises questions about the relationship between art, politics and money.
