Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (MMKA)

Forms of realism make up the core of the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem’s collection, which includes the following sub-collections:

- Precursors from 1890-1925
- Realist movements from 1925-1960 (magic realism, New Objectivity, surrealism, neorealism, figurative expressionism and figurative constructivism)
- Forms of Figuration 1950-1990 (New Figuration, the New Hague School, etc.)
- Representative art 1985-present
- Modern and contemporary applied art and design (1900-present).

‘Forms of realism’ is a central theme in all the collections. Realism is a pragmatic working term whose meaning constantly changes. In the visual arts realism with a “small r” involves the depiction of people, places and / or things in contrast to art for art’s sake and pure abstraction.

At the same time, each artwork has its abstract elements, and the reality of art is different from the reality of nature. In 1890, Maurice Denis expressed this idea as follows: “Remember that a painting before being a battle horse, a nude, or a scene, is essentially a flat surface, covered with colors that are organized in a specific manner.”

This “definition of neo-traditionalism” in fact ushered in the beginnings of modern art and demonstrated that tradition and modernity are not necessarily mutually exclusive as is sometimes thought. The Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem sees the concept of realism as deeply connected to contemporary reality. Artists must deal with the here-and-now; this was the case when the Gemeentemuseum Arnhem opened in 1920 and remains the case today.