Exhibitions

Kunst grenzenlos - “Art unlimited”

shows some 60 artists with more than 140 objects that Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893-1983) had presented during her exhibition-tours of four continents as “ambassador of the arts”. It also exhibits some of her discoveries in the host- countries as well as her view on contemporary art of the 1950-1960s.

In 1947 she founded a gallery in Frankfurt, the Frankfurter Kunstkabinett Hanna Bekker vom Rath. After experiencing German dictatorship and World-War II hardly anyone understood the cultural loss Germany had suffered. Only a few individuals with courage and farsightedness were engaged in overcoming frontiers by the means of art. Hence intercultural dialogues and trialogues were still off sight and even more off mind. Mass-tourism, globalization and the word-wide-web were not even imaginable. A woman in her sixties traveling on her own was quite unseen. 

The exhibition-tours were intended to show German contem-porary art abroad and included formerly forbidden artists as well as newly emerging artists. Hanna Bekker vom Rath exhibited their work in South America, South Africa, India, Spain, the US, Mexico, Egypt, Greece, the Lebanon and Morocco. She sought every opportunity during her trips both to reconnect with exiled artists and create new links with artists of the host countries. Complementing her interest in modern and contemporary art, she also engaged with indigenous cultures and collected many objects of tribal art. The bonds forged when the works of “her” artists encountered new audiences across different cultures mirror the relationships she nurtured with new and old friends, as reflected in the exhibition‘s title: “Art unlimited”.