The artist Alfred Nungesser (1903–1983) has a side mostly undiscovered and unpublished up till now. In Berlin in 1930, he created about 100 collages from illustrated magazines; they are unique, civilization-critical documents on life in the industrialized metropolis. The artist piles fragments to gigantic constructions in which the supremacy and magic of the big city towers to the heavens. Groups of people are arranged in geometric forms, whereby Nungesser addresses the effects of industrial structures on people’s life and rhythm. He exposes the political propaganda that turns the population into a mass synchronized to conformity.
Nungesser’s perfectly collaged panoramas develop cunning commentaries on the metaphors for the metropolis. Stylistically, the works are a mixture of the avant-garde currents of the time, combining Expressionism and Surrealism, Dadaistic elements and New Objectivity.

Editor: Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt
Authors: Mechthild Haas, Sascha Mintkiewicz
Artists: Alfred Nungesser

Softcover
24 x 30 cm
80 pages
47 color illustrations

German
available
ISBN 978-3-936636-99-4
19,80 Euro
2006