Franz Wilhelm Seiwert – Freudlose Gasse - Behind the Mask of Joys (1927)

Louisiana Poster with the work, Freudlose Gasse - Behind the Mask of Joys (1927), by the German artist, Franz Wilhelm Seiwert (1894-1933). The poster is published in 2022 in connection with Louisiana's exhibition about Germany in the 1920s, The Cold Eye. Seiwert's work is one of many expressions of artists' interest in the fluid boundaries between gender and sexuality that flourished in 1920s Germany—not least in Berlin.

In Germany, gender roles change with the end of the First World War. Women get the right to vote in 1918 and more foothold on the labor market. The artists are interested in these changes and with an almost sociological look they construct a category of the liberated, Neue Frau - The new woman. The woman is often portrayed as androgynous with masculine features, a short page, a cigarette, a shirt, perhaps a tie, and a flat torso.

In nightclubs in Berlin, for example the famous Eldorado, a significant subculture arises among transgenders and homosexuals, which the police see through—and which is depicted by the artists of the period.