Artists interpret historical sources from the city archive.
16. – 31.05.2024
With Georg Bernhard, Paul Englmeier, Gerhard Fauser, Rainer Kaiser, Erika Kassnel-Henneberg, Christofer Kochs, Beatrice Schmucker, Jana Schwindel
City Archive, Zur Kammgarnspinnerei 11, Augsburg
Vernissage Wednesday 15.05.24, 18.30 hrs
Welcome: Archive Director Kerstin Lengger
Greeting: Mayor Eva Weber
Artistic introduction: Beatrice Schmucker and Christofer Kochs
Special opening hours: Tue to Fri 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Sat, Sun and public holidays 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
The site-specific work The A-Cloud, a group of works in 11 sheets in an archive box, was produced for this exhibition using material from the city archive.
At Stadthausgalerie Sonthofen, ten artistic positions from the GEDOK come together in the exhibition A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN. Erika Kassnel-Henneberg presents a selection of her video works that explore memory, loss, and identity. These works speak quietly, yet with urgency. They invite viewers to reconsider their relationship to images, archives, and personal history.
How would I describe my Room?
“When a person leaves for good, she or he leaves many things behind. What happens to them? Are they kept? Are they given away? Sold? Thrown away? And what about those that can’t simply be disposed of, such as a room – his or her room. We had a room like that in my childhood home. A shrine of memories.
Spatial Dimension of Remembering
These rooms here describe the spatial dimension of remembering: old photographs are brought to life – Deep Paula and Post Mortem – an artificial, uncanny liveliness. Would you be willing to bring a photo of a deceased loved one to life – with the help of artificial intelligence?
What meaning does an old photo album have Below the Surface when there is no one left to tell the stories of these people? Can our imagination save them?
The Letters as Metaphorical Bridges
And then there are countless Letters from Utopia. Who still writes letters today? Here they are metaphorical bridges to a place of longing that only exists in our memories – a very personal Utopia. Science has taught us that memory is flawed. We leave traces, collect documents and photographs, and archive them. I see this as an existential doubt: who am I if I can’t trust memory? If I leave no traces, did I ever exist?” from the description of my room.
About the Exhibition
“In the exhibition “A room to yourself”, ten artists are showing works that deal with Virginia Woolf’s thoughts on feminism and gender differentiation in the broadest sense. The title refers to Woolf’s 1929 essay, which has been available as a German translation since 1978. The themes it contains, such as autonomy, self-development and creative freedom through various artistic disciplines, are still relevant today. A space, be it physical or metaphorical, functions as a home for the innermost thoughts and dreams. It offers the necessary freedom to unfold the inner monologue, to spin ideas and to connect them with creative impulses. The participating artists are members of GEDOKmünchen, an interdisciplinary association of women artists that has been active nationwide since 1926.”
When a person leaves forever, many things remain. Furniture, photographs, letters. Some objects can be passed on. Others carry a weight that resists disposal. A room belongs to this category. It preserves traces of a life. Many homes contain such a room. It functions like a shrine of memory.
The exhibition builds on this idea. The room stands for the spatial dimension of remembering. It stores stories, even when no one remains to tell them. Space becomes a bearer of identity. It holds on to what threatens to disappear.
Video Works Between Past and Present
Erika Kassnel-Henneberg’s video works focus on this fragile in-between state. Old photographs begin to move. In Deep Paula and Post Mortem, an artificial, almost unsettling liveliness emerges. The artist uses digital processes to animate static images. The result feels familiar and alien at the same time.
A central question remains unresolved: Would we bring a photograph of a beloved deceased person back to life? Technology makes it possible. Art demands a response. Kassnel-Henneberg offers no answers. She opens a space for reflection.
Artificial Intelligence and Emotional Proximity
Artificial intelligence promises closeness. It reconstructs faces, simulates expressions and gestures. Yet closeness never replaces lived relationships. The videos expose this tension. They show how easily technology reshapes memory.
At the same time, a new form of intimacy appears. The animated image confronts the viewer directly. It demands attention and engagement. The audience does not observe from a distance. It becomes part of the encounter.
Photo Albums as Fragile Archives
What does an old photo album mean when no one remains to tell the stories behind it? The work Under the Surface addresses this question directly. Images lose their context. They remain as empty shells.
Can imagination fill this gap? Or does it invent new biographies? Kassnel-Henneberg treats the album as an archive without a narrator. The work reveals how memory disintegrates when it is no longer shared.
Letters from Utopia: Longing and Loss
Another motif runs through the exhibition: letters. Letters from Utopia resemble messages from another era. Today, hardly anyone writes letters. Here, they function as metaphorical bridges to a place of longing that exists only in memory.
Utopia stands for the deeply personal. It marks a place that survives only internally. The letters connect past and present. They create closeness, even though sender and recipient have long since vanished.
Doubt About One’s Own Memory
Science teaches us that memory is unreliable. We forget. We distort. We reconstruct. That knowledge drives us to collect traces. We archive documents, photographs, and texts.
These actions reveal an existential doubt. Who am I if I cannot trust my memory? Did I ever exist if I leave no traces behind? The exhibition raises these questions without dramatization. It leaves the answers to the viewer.
GEDOK Positions in Dialogue
The exhibition brings together ten artists from GEDOK Munich. Their works engage, in a broad sense, with ideas developed by Virginia Woolf. The title refers to her essay A Room of One’s Own.
Themes such as autonomy, self-realization, and creative freedom remain highly relevant. The exhibition translates these ideas into contemporary artistic languages.
Space as a Condition for Creativity
A space can be physical or metaphorical. It offers protection. It enables concentration. It allows thoughts to grow. In the exhibition, space functions as a home for inner monologue and imagination.
25.11.23 – 7.01.24, Halle 1 – Raum für Kunst im Glaspalast
Vernissage: Saturday, 25.11.2023, 11.00 am Greetings: Martin Sailer, District President of the District of Swabia and patron Jürgen Enninger, Head of Cultural Affairs of the City of Augsburg Dr. Thomas Elsen, Augsburg Art Collections and Museums Norbert Kiening, Chairman of the BBK Schwaben-Nord und Augsburg e.V. Art award ceremony: Jürgen Enninger, Head of Cultural Affairs of the City of Augsburg
Vernissage on November 3 at 7 p.m. in St. Konrad, Bärenstr. 22, 86156 Augsburg, Germany.
Finissage on December 3.
The apple was and is in many cultures of high symbolic power: Be it as a symbol for eternal youth, eternal life, for love, fertility, paradise and fall of man. In this videoinstallation we circle around a golden apple. We recognize familiar places in the Bärenkeller (a district of Augsburg) in the background and on its reflecting surface. Like foreign bodies, two-dimensional portraits of various people float in it. Who are these people? The holy family? Our neighbors? They never existed, but are outputs of an artificial intelligence. Is this paradise on earth?
20 female artists show their works on the theme “More theater!” Annual exhibition of the GEDOKmünchen.
Exhibition from 16.09.-29.10.2023
Opening: Friday, 15.09.2023, 6 p.m. Welcome: Rasmus Kleine, Museum Director Music: Karera Fujita – premiere contemporary singing, soprano solo and Monika Olszak – jazz interpretation, saxophone
Exhibition tour with artists: Oct. 29, 2023, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (GEDOK patrons), 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. (public)
Gallery in the castle pavilion, Schloßstraße 1, 85737 Ismaning
Tuesday to Saturday 14:30 to 17 h, Sunday 13 to 17 h or by appointment
Gallery in the Schlosspavillon Ismaning, 2023. Photo: Julia Milberger
With works by: Silke Bachmann – Ursula Bolck-Jopp – Teresa Dietrich – Dorothea Dudek – Renate Gehrcke – Sabine Groschup – Cordula Hofmann-Molis – Claude Jones – Erika Kassnel-Henneberg – Carmen Kordas – Augusta Laar – Katharina Lehmann – Antje Lindner – Nina Annabelle Märkl – Ulrike Prusseit – Charlotte Simon – Julia Smirnova
“Artificial worlds as a contrast or correction to “real life” are not an invention of the present. Models that take up themes of the everyday in order to place them on a stage or in a fictitious space have existed as long as there have been people. Artists who playfully – that is, according to their own rules and without coercion from outside – express their creativity and develop their individual style. Artificial worlds – according to Friedrich Schiller – that “dream away real ones” have not only existed since the invention of computer games and avatars. “Don’t make such a fuss?” Yes it does: we conquer the stages with pictures, drawings, mixed media, videos, sculptures, installations and performance.”
A C H T U N G K U N S T – Like cinema, but different.
When: 12.10.2023, 7 – 8.30 p.m.
Where: Diedorf community center, Europaplatz 1, 86420 Diedorf
Old photos that suddenly come to life, faceless dancers, human portraits created by artificial intelligence (AI) and eerie fairy tales … The videos of the Anhauser artist Erika Kassnel-Henneberg surprise and move. On this evening, she presents a selection of her works to the Diedorf audience, tells about the creation and ideas behind them, and thus gives very personal insights into her conceptual work. In 2022, she received the Art Prize of the Augsburg district for her complete works. The artist will be present.
“ONED was founded in 2019, We focuses on unconventional images, experiments, and extreme themes. From 2023 the official selection will be screened in China, and France. We cooperate with China’s largest experimental culture company, Toulouse Art Fair in France. Hope to normalize the unconventional.” https://www.onedfilmfest.com/
