Introduction

It was a sensation, a bang. In November 2010, the national and international press reported on the Berlin sculpture discovery, which was on the Museum Island in the Greek court of the New Museum show for over a year, "Degenerate Art in the bomb debris."

Missing were the Nazis outlawed works of art have been dredged. Finally they were shown, though damaged and partially destroyed. A touching presentation. The focal point was a bronze figure by Marg Moll. They too had been dug next to the other works by German artists ostracized from the war rubble in front of the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin. A spectacular chance discovery, which was founded to prepare and accompany.

Prospecting work they had come in January 2010 at a metal object. From the rubble of war damaged buildings in Berlin archaeologists gradually salvaged other art works. The startling discovery led to the darkest period of German history.

"Degenerate Art" - this is abusive titles of important works of modern art from 1937 were by the Nazis in a traveling exhibition; mocks and ridicules been. Including the "Dancer" by Marg Moll, in addition to other, unfortunately, lost sculptures of this artist, formerly owned by the Breslau Museum.

Through the careful excavation of the Berlin archaeologists and the carefully - term work of the conservators of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, a light was thrown on an important, unfortunately, now almost forgotten Ger-man artist, whose work during the Second World War and the infamous Fanatisierungsswut the National Socialists were largely destroyed.

Between 1965 and 1977 because I had some exhibitions and projects more in-depth interviews with the sculptor Marg Moll, who at that time in Dusseldorf, Munich and then lived and worked. I could, and several witnesses - including the architects Hans-roun damage, the painter Johannes Molzahn and Georg Muche, but also the bio-graphers of her husband, Siegfried Salzmann - ask for formative life situations and personal experiences. Some art historians, especially Gora Jain, I owe important insights.

As only a few contemporary German sculptors Marg Moll embodied in the 20th Century European identity. They knew how their roots, their history and tradition associated impressed by awakening, awareness and tolerance. Beginning of the 20th Century, in 1902, broke through traditional constraints and patterns of living it, leaving her parents' house, to become an artist. Almost eighteen years old she was.

Self-confident, assertive and willing to take risks she was looking for sound basic equipment. First, in Germany, especially with Lovis Corinth, then in France with Henri Matisse. When his first German sculptor schoolgirl image she studied with him in Paris, one of the co-founders of his College. As one of the first women in Germany, she trod the still relatively undiscovered, very controversial way to modern sculpture. She has worked consistently and unswervingly opened up for new trends and perspectives.

Marg Moll traveled all over Europe, modeled, painted, experimented, developed. With her husband, the painter Oskar Moll, it broke - but often alone - again and again to a variety of study tours and encounters with avant-garde artists like gene on Léger, Brancusi and others.

Vitale, experimental and expressive power like they were winged and an idiosyncratic, modern sculptural expression language are developed. Raised in two homelands, they wrestled their lives to an ever richer expectant dimensional stability, for a place in modern art.

Prejudice-free, she worked, looked around, took part in the early 20th Century at radically new, crucial to a turnaround. Setbacks and abuse they endured, operating without ideological blinders or national intercultural dialogue between the artists, learning of many nations. Awake, responsive and controlled, she worked with on cross-border cultural exchange of young, often strayed offside and obscurities society. They fertilized by their work and life performance of both the interaction and collaboration of very different artists in Europe.

Your determination, patience, marked by tenacious nature and form of force, it is thanks to them that it is one of the most important, unfortunately, forgotten artists in Germany, the modern sculpture have prepared the way. Their 2010 in Berlin excavation debris recovered "dancer", which was built around 1930, it proves emphatically.

To make matters worse was the end of the Second World War her house in Berlin, which was built by her friend, the architect Hans Scharoun, destroyed by an air attack. Firebombs destroy both the bulk of the work of Marg Moll and one of the largest, most valuable collections of avant-garde paintings and sculptures, which the couple had amassed.

Nearly eighty percent of their works, all their worldly possessions, all the photos and documentaries, its archives were fleeing from war and destroyed. Most of it literally in one night. "It occurred to me is lost or the" she said in an interview. But they started over again, trying to continue to shape, carve, model to paint.

Her life also documents the ongoing examination of their own, marked by hope performance confidence. Tragedy and joy lay side by side. She remained calm, although almost everything he had to live, what people can endure.

Typical of Marg Moll in her work are the archetypal gestures compassionate devotion and meditative concentration. Artificial clouds surround her oeuvre is not. Her sculptures create distance without pathos. Its principle was hope. She followed him without sentimentality. She remained on the nature-oriented, abstract, minimalist. Her works express a life facing sensuality.

"I study everything that interests me, as a stone, a leaf, an insect," said she on the verge of shooting the film "Our life together," the shot in 1966, the documentary filmmaker and photographer Karl Wiehn: "I'm looking for form, I find the rhythm. "

Every work of art is silent and is also touching, triggers feelings and is filled with it.

That is why I touched the Berlin Sculpture Fund 2010th In the rubble of the old royal road a trail was discovered, the story of our presence visible. A few years earlier, the Berlin Senate, the daughter who lives in Munich, reported that the recognition of the honor of burial Moll in Berlin-Zehlendorf can not be extended.

Werner Filmer (March 2012)