Cracks in the shadow or the (un)certainties of memory

About the production

The exhibition brings together poetic examinations of artistic (pictorial) narratives of individual and collective histories. The film »Felix in Exile« (1994) by William Kentridge, which consists of expressive charcoal drawings, plays a central role here.

It tells the story of Felix, who lives in exile in Paris, and Nandi, a surveyor. The two come from different cultures, but merge with each other just as much as their memories of their common homeland, its eventful history and its inscriptions in the landscape.

The graphic gesture as a narrative form finds its echo in the large-format paintings of the cycle »Die Krähe« (2011) by Johannes Heisig. They are based on poems by the British writer Ted Hughes and bear witness to the struggle with guilt and despair, also with loneliness and togetherness, and pose the question of the meaning of human existence.

Various layering and processing techniques characterise Sabine Herrmann's gestural paintings, which are permeated by hints of graphic fragments. Figurative constellations, designed more as shadows than as bodies in large-format pictorial spaces, reflect the delicate relationship between individual identity (Identita), imaginative space and the field of tension between inner and outer realities.

Klaus Killisch's portraits of nameless, faceless and timeless smokers, who seem to float schematically and colour-reduced in diffuse-monochrome pictorial spaces, function as silent witnesses or observers.

Opening: 27.08.2025, 18:00 Uhr

Duration: 28.08.–31.10.2025

Opening hours: daily, 10:00-18:00

Tickets: 2–4 Euro – via Neue Schloss Bad Muskau