What remains of the Twenties when you take away the gilt frame? Not just the Charleston, shimmering façades and the promise of the modern metropolis. Poverty, political violence and the aftermath of the First World War also belong in the picture. From 6 November, the exhibition “Am Ende des Tages: 100 Jahre Neue Sachlichkeit” (At the End of the Day: 100 Years of New Objectivity) at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg on the Mönchsberg examines this contradictory period.
Paintings, graphic works, photographs and sculptures are intended to lead visitors from the studio onto the street, into the theatre and finally into the night. The exhibition brings together works from the Jan E. Fischer Private Collection, supplemented by loans from Austrian collections. Artists represented include Albert Birkle, Dodo, Elde Steeg, Lotte Laserstein, George Grosz, Otto Dix, Christian Schad and Rudolf Schlichter. The Salzburg presentation is curated by Marijana Schneider; the concept was developed by Noam Gal for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where the exhibition was previously shown.
Objectivity Does Not Mean a Neutral Gaze
The movement’s name suggests a cool appraisal. It was coined in 1925 with an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Mannheim: its director, Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, brought together various strands of German art following Expressionism under the heading “New Objectivity”. What they shared was a renewed turn towards figurative representation, but not a common style or a uniform political stance. Precise, often sharply delineated depictions could offer social criticism; equally, they could imagine a different reality through quiet, classically ordered images.
These distinctions matter when the interwar period is evoked today as a decorative promise: an era of dance halls, short skirts and supposedly carefree metropolitan life. The art of New Objectivity cannot be reduced to such a backdrop. Its view of people and things is interesting precisely because precision does not automatically make an image neutral. Who is being observed, and who is allowed to look back? Which bodies appear as individuals, and which as types defined by their class, profession or gender?
From the Street into the Night
The exhibition’s narrative follows the course of a day. This promises an accessible structure, but also raises a question about the selection: which experiences become visible along this route, and which are pushed to the margins? The museum announces themes including social change, identity, role models and experiences of crisis. With women artists such as Dodo, Elde Steeg and Lotte Laserstein, the presentation is not limited to the movement’s familiar male names. How far this shifts the perspective on work, gender and public life will become clear through the actual hang and the individual works.
This is no minor matter. According to the Kunsthalle, the famous Mannheim exhibition of 1925 presented around 32 artists — none of them women. An exhibition a hundred years later cannot undo this historical omission. But it can show that the history of New Objectivity encompasses more than its familiar leading figures. Whether the Salzburg selection truly brings the different artistic positions into tension with one another cannot be conclusively judged before a visit.
The title “Am Ende des Tages” directs attention towards a transition: from the bustle of public life into the night, from the visible surface to what it conceals. The exhibition could challenge nostalgia most effectively where the images do not deny the allure of modernity, but also carry its costs and fractures within them. Audiences therefore need not choose between glamour and crisis. The Twenties were both — and New Objectivity turned that coexistence into a pictorial question.
The exhibition is on view on the Mönchsberg from 6 November 2026 to 28 February 2027. The opening has been announced for the evening of 5 November; the regular exhibition run begins the following day.
Original reviewed by the editors · 4 November 2026
