Leerstellen sichtbarmachen

In the organizer's words:

Guided tour with Lina Frubrich of the installation by Shlomit Lehavi and Sharon Adler. An event as part of the Jewish Week.

What is it about?

With their civic and cultural commitment, Jewish citizens of Leipzig have had a decisive influence on the city and the MdbK since the 19th century - until they were disenfranchised, persecuted, expelled, robbed and murdered under National Socialism. Knowledge of their work and their art collections is largely lost today. The MdbK wants to bring the names and stories of Leipzig's pioneering Jewish protagonists back into the public consciousness and the museum. Together with the artist Shlomit Lehavi and the publicist Sharon Adler, it has been searching for traces since 2024 to make forgotten and erased connections visible again.

Making voids visible expands the image of the donors and patrons depicted to include the Jewish protagonists and makes it clear that knowledge and history are dependent on the question that guides them. Shlomit Lehavi works across genres and combines traditional techniques with media art methods. Making Voids Visible - an installation of digital drawings presented on a transparent screen - stands at the interface of video, drawing and interactive art. The work fits spatially into the foyer and creates a place of remembrance in the MdbK.

The researched biographies are made available to visitors as audio files in an audio station on site and online . The texts were created together with Sharon Adler, who also recorded them in German and English, lending her voice to the former Leipzig families. Making voids visible invites visitors to pause, act and observe and offers the opportunity to delve deep into forgotten family histories.

Jewish families, collectors and artists were an important part of Leipzig's cultural life before 1933. Their contribution and commitment, as well as their life stories, were erased from the city's memory with the persecution, expulsion and murder under National Socialism. Their absence has left voids. Filling these gaps and remembering these people is an important task in dealing with the collection and the history of the MdbK.