Ausstelling: Ritual & Rebellion #1. Junge, zeitgenössische, experimentelle jüdische Kunst: Adam Elezrah & Michal Arnheim

In the organizer's words:

On May 8, together with ANTI, we are launching our new series Ritual and Rebellion, with which we are opening up a space for young contemporary, experimental and socially critical Jewish artists who deal with the complexity, contradictions and current transformation processes of Jewish life, Jewish memory and identity.

Our first issue brings together artistic perspectives that look back in different ways to their own childhoods and religiously influenced pasts: Michal Arnheim, Adam Elezrah and Daniella Ljungsberg.

Ritual and rebellion #1
Gallery HINTEN (+ shop window gallery Glaskasten)
Exhibition duration: 8.5.26 - 12.7.26
Vernissage: 8.5.26, 19:00, Galerie HINTEN with concert by Daniella Ljungsberg
Curation: Yoav Schutzer
Opening hours: Fri + Sat: 18:00 - 22:00, Sun 15:00 - 19:00

Michal Arnheim (*1994) lives and works in Jerusalem. A graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts, her photographic practice explores the complex layers of memory, femininity and spirituality. Having grown up in an orthodox Jewish environment, she sees photography as a tool of emancipation and a search for traces. She returns to the places of her childhood - such as her former synagogue - in order to reoccupy spaces characterized by rigid rules through "invented rituals" and playful, intuitive impulses. In doing so, she not only documents the past, but also translates hidden and unconscious imprints into abstract visual representations. Her work oscillates in the fluid field of tension between her religious origins and the spiritual reality she has redefined today.

Adam Elezrah (*1994), who recently completed his master's degree at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is located at the interface of sculpture, installation and performance. His work draws on his intense exploration of his childhood in an equally strict religious Jewish environment, where superstition and ritual protection mechanisms defined everyday life. In particular, the omnipresence of talismans to ward off the "evil eye" serves him as a starting point to investigate the processes of emptying and reactivating objects and their meanings. In his site-specific installations, Elezrah deconstructs the original function of everyday objects and transforms them into new symbolic carriers through material experiments.

Both Arnheim and Elezrah understand the return to their own past not as a nostalgic gesture, but as a productive moment. While Michal reappropriates space through photography, Adam transforms it through the physical presence of his sculptures. Both artists show that identity is not a static state, but a permanent process of transformation - a constant oscillation between what has shaped us and what we create from it.

The opening will be accompanied by a concert by Daniella Ljungsberg. Daniella studied New Music at the Musrara School of Arts in Jerusalem. She interweaves Nordic folklore with granular synthesis, loops and field recordings to create dreamlike, mystical lo-fi ambient - she also takes us on a sonic odyssey back to her Swedish roots and childhood memories. Between dream-pop and experimental nostalgia, Ljungsberg creates an atmosphere that seems like a collective memory - an invitation to an almost ghostly but deeply familiar world.

This exhibition is made possible by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony and the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S.: Home and co-financed by tax funds on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.