This book provides a stimulating overview of twentieth-century German art with chapters focusing on some of the period's key works by the now-canonical artists Max Beckmann, George Grosz,
Hannah H繹ch, Willi Baumeister, Arno Breker, Joseph Beuys, and Gerhard Richter. In Peter Chametzky's innovative approach, these works become representatives rather than representations of
twentieth-century history. That is, the art here does not simply illustrate an argument, the art is the argument. Chametzky draws on both scholarly and popular sources to demonstrate how the
works (and in some cases, the artists themselves) interact with, and even enact, historical events, processes, and ideas. He asserts the continued historical role of material art works in an
era when less material forms-photography, film, television, video, digital images-have assumed the function of visually depicting, narrating, and dramatizing contemporary history. This
wide-ranging book opens and illuminates new avenues of inquiry through a provocative juxtaposition of the works, the issues they embody, and the histories inscribed in them.
