Birgitte Anderberg & Vibeke Vibolt Knudsen

Toulouse-Lautrec Birgitte Anderberg & Vibeke Vibolt Knudsen 1st edition

In most of the art historical writing in the 20th century, it has been considered good practice to keep art separate from popular culture. This changed in the 1960s when the boundaries between art and popular or mass culture shifted radically. Andy Warhol's celebration of celebrity culture and his art factory is perhaps the most obvious example. Genealogically, Paris in La Belle Époque is an important link in this history, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec occupies a very special status due to his completely unveiled exchange with the entertainment industry from the late 1880s. The human comedy – as Balzac dubbed the social game – in Lautrec's interpretations of the city's theater was infiltrated by popular cultural dynamics. They themselves contributed to creating the culture that was portrayed. Therefore, Lautrec is just as relevant today as he was in the early modern world when his art was created. This is especially true in his pioneering and visually radical graphic works and posters, which were produced in a period of just ten years from 1891 until his death in 1901, during which he managed to produce over 360 different lithographic prints. Today, the Royal Print Collection holds one of the most complete collections of Lautrec's graphic work. In contrast to earlier chronologically structured exhibitions, Toulouse-Lautrec. The Human Comedy views Lautrec's work from a comprehensive, thematic perspective, showing a broad selection of Lautrec's graphic work with a focus on the city's body and its staging of gender and identity.