Strong start: Munch exhibition attracts thousands of visitors

The major Munch exhibition in the Capital of Culture year is attracting thousands of visitors to Chemnitz. Around 5,000 people came in the first week alone, the art collections announced in response to a dpa inquiry. "On the opening weekend alone, 2,200 people visited the exhibition," says General Director Florence Thurmes. "We also see queues at the door during the week."

The response from visitors has been very positive. This is shown by the personal feedback after the exhibition. "People often use superlatives and terms like 'sensational', which are of course very complimentary terms for our exhibition," says Thurmes.

Scream motif on show in Chemnitz

The exhibition features almost 100 works by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), including a lithograph of his world-famous scream motif. Also the painting "Two People. The Lonely Ones", which once belonged to the Chemnitz collection and was sold under the National Socialists, as well as the portrait of Herbert Esche and the landscape painting "View of the Chemnitz Valley" - both of which were created during a visit to the city by the artist in 1905. The exhibition places Munch's works in dialog with many other works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Neo Rauch, Marina Abramović and Georg Baselitz.

Chemnitz is this year's European Capital of Culture together with the Slovenian town of Nova Gorica on the border with Italy. The art collections are contributing a great deal to the success of the program. The "European Realities" exhibition on realism movements of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe already attracted a great deal of attention beyond the region. The exhibition attracted almost 40,000 visitors. This made it the most successful exhibition at the Gunzenhauser Museum since it opened in 2007.

The Munch exhibition "Angst" can be seen in the art collections on Theaterplatz until 2 November.