Barbara Holub: Die Welt wieder verzaubern

Thu, 3 Jul 2025
18:00-21:00

Barbara Holub: Die Welt wieder verzaubern

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The Kunstverein is pleased to present Re-enchanting the World by Barbara Holub.

Taking its title from Silvia Federici’s book Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, Holub's installation reflects on the monumental construction of the Karl Marx sculpture, unveiled in 1971 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). Once a symbol of socialist vision, the sculpture today often serves as a hollow backdrop for all kinds of events – including far-right gatherings. 
Holub's striking ink drawing collages various scenes related to the construction of the Karl Marx monument, expanding and reconfiguring them to the extent that the visual information becomes deliberately ambiguous. The resulting “colouring book image” draws on the artist's long-standing artistic method, in which all visual elements—executed using a 1mm mapping nib—are accorded equal weight. By suspending conventional hierarchies of representation, the work interrogates the distinction between ostensibly significant and marginal details within historical visual narratives.
The drawing is displayed on a white photographic backdrop mounted on a metal frame, echoing setups used in photo studios. Holub thus reinterprets the original construction site as a metaphorical “construction site” for our present, using transformed historical imagery. In doing so, she raises the question: How can we build a more just society and what kinds of visions are necessary to achieve it?

Simultaneously, the exhibitions Pandora's Box - An alternate dramaturgy of the past and the present or for a dystopian world featuring works by William Cody Maherand Signe Mähler, as well as Sediments of Memory:Unearthing Histories Beneath the Mexican Embassy in Berlin by Carmen Mariscal will be opening.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
Barbara Holub, Die Welt wieder verzaubern ( drawing detail)
Barbara Holub, Die Welt wieder verzaubern(drawing detail)