Kirchner is known to have sketched in the cinema, highlighting the strong influence of moving images on his work. Key themes such as the modern city, movement, anxiety, and identity link his art to cinematic motifs of the 1920s.

Icons like Asta Nielsen, along with films such as The Student of Prague and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, reflect motifs of doubling, inner fragmentation, and social upheaval that also preoccupied Kirchner. Silent film classics by Murnau, Wiene, and Lang reveal cinema as a space for experimentation with image, space, and perception.

The exhibition also considers Kirchner’s years in Davos, drawing on letters and diaries to trace his possible encounters with film. Film stills, selected sequences, and a screening program bring this dialogue between painting and cinema vividly to life.