Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Germany has reemerged as a potent intellectual and creative center within the international art world.

In February 2007, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, the first thematic museum exhibition to examine how contemporary artists have dealt - both directly and indirectly - with the social, economic and political ramifications of German unification.

Reality Bites is conceived and organized by Sabine Eckmann, Ph.D., director and chief curator of the Kemper Art Museum.

It is also the first major loan show in the museum's new facilities, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, which were dedicated in October 2006.

In all, Reality Bites will feature approximately 70 artworks created since 1989, by both German artists and international figures living in Germany.

The vast majority of the artworks have never been exhibited in the United States.

They range from video and photography to sculpture, installation, assemblage and new media art.