EMILIO VEDOVA – More than Movement for Its Own Sake

About the Exhibition

Rather than revisiting this frequently exhibited work, the show at Kunsthaus Dahlem concentrates on the lesser-seen works from Vedova’s Berlin years. Among them are several Plurimi created on site – both in the form of models and fully realised works. With these, the artist broke through the boundaries of painting and carried it into three-dimensionality. Yet the works are not only a formal exploration of the picture plane, but also an engagement with the history and present of the city. Vedova was deeply concerned with tracing the legacy of artists who had once contributed to Berlin’s cultural flowering – the Expressionists as well as the Dadaists. Collages and prints, often titled “Homage à Dada”, bear witness to his engagement with this pre-war avant-garde movement. At the same time, he took a political stance, addressing both the traces of the Nazi past and the escalating East–West conflict – not through figurative references, but through the absence of a fixed pictorial structure and an expressive application of colour. For Vedova, the Berlin Plurimi reveal “the simultaneity of the present, events that have happened, that continue to happen, and that must shake everyone to the core”.

The exhibition unfolds chronologically and thematically through Vedova’s Berlin years and invites visitors to rediscover his work. Its title, More than Movement for Its Own Sake, echoes a dictum of the artist:

“My work is anything but a game, movement for its own sake – quite the opposite …”.

In doing so, the exhibition points to Vedova’s central concern: to understand movement not as an end in itself, but as an expression of social, political, and human experience. For today’s audience, Vedova’s art remains strikingly relevant – as a passionate plea for freedom, critical thinking, and artistic independence.