“Zeitgeist” opened in 1982 at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, West Berlin, curated by Christos Joachimides and Norman Rosenthal. It was the German companion to the Royal Academy’s “A New Spirit in Painting” and the immediate precursor to Documenta 7. The exhibition placed Neo-Expressionism in its native context: the backdrop was the Berlin Wall, and the city itself — divided, occupied, politically charged — became part of the work’s meaning.
The show included Baselitz, Kiefer, Lüpertz, Penck, Immendorff, and the Junge Wilden, alongside international figures. Where “A New Spirit” claimed universal renewal, “Zeitgeist” was more specific, more German, and more politically loaded. The title itself — “spirit of the age” — was both aspirational and defensive, as if the curators were insisting that the movement was not a market trend but a historical necessity.
See also
- A New Spirit in Painting — the London canonization
- Documenta 7 — the Kassel ratification
- Georg Baselitz — the central figure