by Marcel ReyesImage used is Dix's Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber, a highlighted work in this exhibition (used educationally for this review).
Though raw in content and at times appearance, Dix's work should not be taken as loose and expressive. It is tight and focused visually, and thematically the ouvre as a whole bottlenecks to passion and violence, portrayed with theatricality and grotesqueness.
This show presents Dix's work in dual experiences of appeal, first it presents the work as embittered political commentary about war and nationality, but it also connotes the celebrity of Dix himself, particularly in the resurgence of his more straightforward portraiture ("the golden Weimar years") in the dead-center of his 20th century career.
The Neue Galerie's Dix Show offers, as commemorative merchandise, Dix-inspired