Erinnerung als höchste Form des Vergessens

Akt III - Exhibition by Ute Richter with a performance by Angelika Waniek and artistic contributions by Max Baitinger, Mandy Gehrt, Juliane Jaschnow, Susanne Keichel and Ipke Starke and Slacknetz e.V.
Exhibition: 16.03.-30.04.25
Opening hours: Wednesday 4-7 pm + Sunday 3-7 pm
Art space IDEAL, Schulze-Delitzsch-Straße 27, 04315 Leipzig

The third act of "Remembrance as the highest form of forgetting" in the IDEAL exhibition space and the adjoining urban space questions bearers of memory and testimony and the resonance of places of remembrance, objects, monuments and rituals in the present. How do you open up the topicality of what is to be remembered and make its present-day continuities legible? How is the bearer of memory itself embedded in the present in its political, social and temporal contexts? The third act combines several artistic works across different locations and includes an exhibition in the rooms of IDEAL as well as interventions and events in the urban space.

Ute Richter's oversized banner in the exhibition space defies simple legibility: "Antifascism is no good as a monument". In its ambivalence, the slogan addresses the contradictions of the politics of remembrance. Visually, the banner quotes the official political slogans of the GDR in public space, which propagated politically sanctioned anti-fascism on large, oversized banners. A video by Juliane Jaschnow with sound editing by Ipke Starke shows the activation of the banner in January 2025 above the canal at the Stelzenhaus.

In her performances, the artist Angelika Waniek addresses the gradual silencing of contemporary witnesses who can report on the crimes of the Nazi era. Who now carries the memory? Who can identify with the past when biographical connections are broken or non-existent? Waniek's approach creates situations in which bodies can engage with historical events and materials in a way that acknowledges and processes what happened.

In the public space, the exhibition is extended with a poster work by Max Baitinger, who deconstructs a few seconds in the life of Victor Klemperer, the author of the linguistic analysis of the Third Reich "LTI", in a comic strip. Photographs by Susanne Keichel document the memorial services for the Egyptian Marwa Ali El-Sherbini, who was murdered in a Dresden courtroom on July 1, 2009 for anti-Islamic and xenophobic reasons.

Accompanying program:

05.04.

2 p.m.: Guided tour of the Stelzenhaus district through the memorial for forced labor

24.04.
5 p.m.: Performance by Angelika Waniek in cooperation with the exhibition "Partizan★ke Art" at the HGB Leipzig

26.04.
6 pm: Artist talk with Mandy Gehrt at the Pögehaus

30.04.
7 pm: Talk with the curators and participating artists at IDEAL