Stoffe aus Lublin / Bławatne z Lublina / Fabrics from Lublin
Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz/Ulrike Grossarth/Kathrin Krahl/Kunstfonds/Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden/Kunsthaus Dresden/Kunstverein Hannover/Silke Wagler

The catalogue »Stoffe aus Lublin / Bławatne z Lublina / Fabrics from Lublin« presents Ulrike Grossarth’s artistic examination of the Polish-Jewish history of Lublin. Her starting point is the photo series recorded by Stefan Kiełsznia in the mid-1930s in the Jewish quarter of Lublin. Ulrike Grossarth first came across these photographs in 2006. During the last couple of years she has devoted an entire body of work to this historical collection of images. In her paintings, as in her spatial works and drawn animations, Ulrike Grossarth conducts a subtle transformation of the historical photographical material. Details taken from the images, among them most notably motives of the billboards for fabrics, textiles, and everyday appliances that dominate the street scenes, become abstract emblems, or are transformed into objective indices of a lively culture and society, whose absence continues to persist as a vacancy until today. As Ulrike Grossarth explains her approach: »The production of artworks is secondary for me; I am interested in generating truly experienceable, accessible and radically visual spaces of thought.«