Monica Bonvicini / Monika Sosnowska

The exhibition “Dawn of Humanity. Art in Periods of Upheavel” presents works of art from the Kunstmuseum Bonn’s collection of classic modernism which were created during the first two decades of the twentieth century and are now entering into dialogue with contemporary artistic positions. Common to the works of both epochs is that they arose and continue to arise in an era of profound social, political and interpersonal crises, and that they depict and contemplate this experience: back then the countless lives changed by the impact of the Industrial Revolution; today the ongoing transformation of our social interconnections in a grim confrontation with climate change and the exhaustion of the resources of our world. The beginnings of both the 20th and 21st centuries are marked by wars and violent conflicts threatening our very existence as well as by issues of identity and self-determination.