Gauguin: Why Are You Angry? Alte Nationalgalerie

Leaving both the art capital of Paris and his wife and five children behind, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) began a spiritual and artistic quest to French Polynesia in 1891. He worked and lived there until his death (except for one interlude) some 12 years later.

It was there, in Tahiti, that Gauguin went on to produce his most famous works of art. Gauguin: Why Are You Angry?... Show more

Leaving both the art capital of Paris and his wife and five children behind, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) began a spiritual and artistic quest to French Polynesia in 1891. He worked and lived there until his death (except for one interlude) some 12 years later.

It was there, in Tahiti, that Gauguin went on to produce his most famous works of art. Gauguin: Why Are You Angry? looks at the artist’s oeuvre, which was shaped by Western, colonial ideas of ‘the exotic’ and ‘the erotic’, and juxtaposes it against historical material from Gauguin’s past, as well as with international contemporary art.

Contemporary perspectives have been provided with works from Tahitian activist and multi-artist Henri Hiro (French Polynesia), Angela Tiatia (New Zealand/Australia), Yuki Kihara (Samoa/Japan) and Nashashibi/Skaer (United Kingdom). The exhibit also examines Gauguin’s self-made myth of a “savage artist” against a backdrop of postcolonial debate.