The Blue Rider. Group Dynamics

The artists from the Blue Rider circle (Der Blaue Reiter, ca. 1911-1914) regarded art as a universal language. Their creed was: ‘The whole work, called art, knows no borders and peoples, but humanity.’ In their Der Blaue Reiter almanac, they reproduced a wide variety of works in dialogue. The vision of an equality of the arts of all peoples was groundbreaking for their time, and yet it remained constrained by the colonial world order preceding the First World War. 

For the first time, the Lenbachhaus is presenting the art of the Blue Rider in the context laid out in the almanac: Bavarian and Russian folk art, Japanese woodcuts, children’s drawings, contemporary music, and a variety of works from Bali, Gabon, Oceania, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Egypt.