Opening: Saturday, October 27th, 5 p.m. Art is a fundamental means of cognition. With its enormous range of content, it can, on the one hand, use visual means to reflect on itself, its processes and mediality, as well as its cultural codes; on the other hand, it focuses its lens of interest on the world, our society, and our coexistence. In any case, it makes critical artistic thinking visible and thus opens up a dialogue between artists and the public. Such observations and denunciations of injustices are on display in the exhibition Un/Harmed. Pain and Resistance. Käthe Kollwitz, Colectivo LASTESIS, Adriana Lestido, Heinrich Zille at the Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr. Selected works by Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Zille from the museum's collection address the social impact on women and children at the beginning of the 20th century, marked by war and social and political upheavals as well as tensions in an increasingly fast-paced and radically changing world. The photographs by Adriana Lestido from Argentina and the video work by Colectivo LASTESIS, a feminist women's collective from Chile, reflect in a similar way the enormous social challenges faced by girls and women in the 21st century in the face of continuing and omnipresent attacks and assaults.
The exhibition focuses in particular on the role of women, their resistance, their motherhood, structures of power and control, as well as lust and desire. And although more than 100 years lie between their creation, systemic injustice, patriarchal power structures, but also the hardship and misery of a society in uncertainty are clearly evident in all the works.
Image: Adriana Lestido, Mujeres presas, 1991-93