Halloween may have been and gone, but the monsters are still sharpening their fangs and slamming doors over at Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg in Charlottenburg starting tomorrow (16.12.2022). The gallery is dedicating an entire exhibition to a film that has become a touchstone of the horror genre: Nosferatu, FW Murnau’s eerie classic that was released 100 years ago this year. An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, the silent film centers on the fanged, rodent-like Count Orlok – a haunting bloodsucker who has served as a template for movie vampires ever since. Nosferatu’s stylized sets and stagy acting are held up as masterpieces of German expressionism, and it’s this relationship between film and visual arts that the exhibition unpicks.
Movie stills and posters appear alongside artworks that influenced the film’s aesthetics and tone, from Spanish artist Francisco de Goya’s depictions of monstrous inhumanity to the romance and beauty of Caspar David Friedrich’s nature scenes. In one sequence, the film even recreates Friedrich’s painting “Moonrise Over the Sea” – also exhibited here. Like the film, the exhibition is full of chilling, otherworldly images, though there is still room for some gallows humor: every month, visitors can donate blood at the exhibition in cooperation with the German Red Cross. Even a monster would crack a smile at that…
Text: Benji Haughton / Photos: Albin Grau (1884–1971), Werbeanzeige für NOSFERATU, in: Film-Tribüne, Nr. 34/35, 1921 Kantonsbibliothek Appenzell Ausserrhoden (Schweiz); Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Nosferatu – Symphonie des Grauens (Screenshot), 1922 ©Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden; Franz Sedlacek, Gespenst über den Bäumen, 1932, Landes-Kultur GmbH, Land Oberösterreich, Grafische Sammlung
Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg, Schloßstr.70, 14059 Berlin–Charlottenburg; map
Tue–Fri 10–18h, Sat–Sun 11–18h
Phantoms of the Night: 100 Years of Nosferatu (16.12.2022–23.04.2023)
As part of the centenary, “Nosferatu” will be screened in full on 13.01.2023 at Berlin State Library, Otto-Braun-Saal, Potsdamer Str.33, 10785 Berlin–Tiergarten; map. To attend free of charge register by email before 10.01.
