Degenerate Art

The first exhibition in Dr. Olaf Peters’s trilogy for Neue Galerie New York, Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937 examined the Nazi campaign against modernism and the infamous exhibition used to condemn it. Bringing together works by artists including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, and Oskar Kokoschka, the exhibition placed art alongside photographs, film, propaganda, and archival material to reveal how culture was manipulated in the service of ideology. Working with my creative director Richard Pandiscio, I designed the exhibition and catalogue to evoke this charged historical context through bold typography, archival imagery, and carefully considered juxtapositions, while allowing the power and dignity of the works themselves to remain at the forefront.