Ausstellungseröffnung: Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger

The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the first German institution to present an overview of the groundbreaking work of the painter, psychoanalyst, philosopher and peace activist Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger (BRACHA), who was born in Tel Aviv in 1948. While her theory of the matrixial gaze is widely received in art and science and her works are collected and discussed internationally, BRACHA only received widespread attention in Germany as a result of her resignation from the selection committee for the artistic direction of documenta 16 - partly because the daughter of Holocaust survivors did not feel able to exhibit in Germany for forty years.

On display are her latest paintings, examples of her early work from the 1980s and artist's books in which BRACHA comments on current events in drawings and ink paintings. Early on, BRACHA used the photocopier as a means of creating images, mixed ashes into pigments and examined documents of mass murder for their depictability. In her paintings, which are created in unconscious processes over four to nine years, female victims of the Shoah encounter female figures from ancient myths. BRACHA's art focuses on vulnerability and the interdependence of all life. In doing so, she inspires a younger generation of artists who are interested in inherited trauma and healing. BRACHA's ethical and aesthetic program points the way out of the destructive black and white logic of today's algorithm-driven conflicts and opens up new spaces for humanity, compassion and openness to the future.