Re·per·toire

2022

Video

With the exhibition "Back into the Light. "Four Women Artists - Their Works, Their Paths", the Jewish Museum Frankfurt a.M. is dedicating itself for the first time to four women artists who influenced artistic life in Frankfurt in the 1920s and were widely recognized: These are Erna Pinner (1890-1987), Rosy Lilienfeld (1896-1942) Amalie Seckbach (1870-1944) and Ruth Cahn (1875-1966). While numerous works by the artists Rosy Lilienfeld and Erna Pinner have survived, most of the artistic works by Ruth Cahn and Amalie Seckbach have been lost; only a small number have remained and are now being shown for the first time in the exhibition. The contemporary artist Elianna Renner (born 1977) was commissioned to deal with the gaps in the biographies of Ruth Cahn and Amalie Seckbach and to intervene artistically in one of the exhibition rooms.
The re-per-toire explores loose fragments in the artistic work by Ruth Cahn and Amalie Seckbach. The work unfolds visual spaces that provide insights into their life, art and the creation of legends by female artists from the last century to the present day.

https://www.journal-frankfurt.de/journal_news/Kultur-9/Juedisches-Museum-Vom-Ausgraben-der-Bilder-40044.html

der Auftakt

In her video work, Elianna Renner combines numerous references to Ruth Cahn's life. It begins with the production of art and ends with its being hung. The installation provides detailed references to the Fauvist's sources of inspiration and areas of influence. The presentation of gaps and disruptions in time and Cahn's biography collides with the background music, which consists partly of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps and contemporary music by the componist Julia Mihály.

die Verhandlung

The film is a simulation of a memorial service, spoken by the Women Rabbi Elisa Klappheck from Frankfurt. The video was taken at Amalie Seckbach's last place of living. The focus of this commemoration is Amalie Seckbach's art collection (she was a collector of asian prints), which has largely disappeared. It is said that she herself buried the collection in the cellar of her house shortly before her deportation to Theresienstadt. She used to be seventy years old at that time.
The recited text combines an extract from a Jewish prayer (Kedushat HaShem) with fictitious ritual passages dealing with the meaning of art and humans.

die Verhandlung

We hear Amalie Seckbach speaking to the researcher and artist Elena Makarova from the afterlife via Zoom- meeting. The text is based on excerpts from one of Makarova's novels, in which Amalie Seckbach acts as a medium from the off. The " transformation" into a contemporary communication Medium. The video call deals with the creation of legends, the myth around a person, unpredictable, but not accidental.