Arbeitersturm c. 1923

Karl Wiener made Arbeitersturm with watercolor, and it’s all about the immediacy of the gesture, isn’t it? The paint is laid down in flat, confident strokes, building up this narrative of movement. Look at the way he handles the figures – they're these solid, blocky forms, but there's a real dynamism in their poses, like a series of quick, intuitive decisions made one after the other. Take that red flag, for example, the color just vibrates, a perfect complement to the angular figures that surround it. The artist’s mark-making is so present, you can almost feel him wrestling with the image, trying to get it just right. It’s like Wiener’s having a conversation with folks like Grosz or Dix, but maybe with a touch more optimism. Like a shout into the void. It's loose, and the ambiguity is part of the point, I think.