Mixed media installation (consisting of various furniture, various props and paintings by Karl Heinz Jakob, *1929, †1997, Zwickau)
Installation views Galerie im Turm
Text by Lena Johanna Reisner, photos by Eric Tschernow
DDR Noir, 2018
Mixed media installation
The exhibition DDR NOIR: Schichtwechsel stages an encounter between socialist realism and postmodern design. Drawing on the example of the work of Karl Heinz Jakob (*1929, †1997, Zwickau), Henrike Naumann investigates society‘s relationship with art from the former GDR. She sets paintings by the artist from Saxony into dialogue with her own, walk-through furniture installations.
Galerie im Turm was established in 1965 as the exhibition space of the GDR‘s Guild of Artists, before being integrated into the local administration as a municipal gallery in 1990. Karl Heinz Jakob, the grandfather of the artist, was himself a prominent member of the Guild.
Die Ausstellung DDR NOIR: Schichtwechsel inszeniert eine Begegnung zwischen sozialistischem Realismus und postmodernem Design. Am Beispiel des Werkes von Karl Heinz Jakob (*1929, †1997, Zwickau) untersucht Henrike Naumann den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit der Kunst der ehemaligen DDR. Die Malereien des sächsischen Künstlers setzt sie in Dialog mit ihren eigenen, begehbaren Möbelinstallationen.
Die Galerie im Turm wurde 1965 als Ausstellungsort des Verbandes Bildender Künstler der DDR gegründet, bevor sie 1990 als kommunale Galerie in die Verwaltung des Bezirkes überging. Karl Heinz Jakob, der Großvater der Künstlerin, war selbst ein prominentes Mitglied des Verbandes.












Henrike Naumann



































Henrike Naumann was born 1984 in Zwickau (GDR). Growing up in Eastern Germany, Naumann experienced extreme-right ideology as a predominant youth culture in the 90s. Her work reflects on the history of the right-wing terrorism in Germany as well as on today‘s broad acceptance of racist ideas. She looks at the mechanisms of radicalization and how they are linked to personal experience and youth culture. Naumann explores the friction of contrary political opinion through the ambivalence of personal aesthetic taste. In her immersive installations she combines video and sound with scenographic spaces. In recent years she widened her focus to the global connectivity of youth cultures and the reversion of cultural othering. Notable exhibitions include solo shows at the Belvedere 21 in Vienna, Kunsthaus Dahlem in Berlin, Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach and Galerie Wedding, Berlin, as well as participations at the Busan Biennale (2018), Riga Biennial (2018), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2018), 4th Ghetto Biennale at Port-Au-Prince (2015), and the 3rd Herbstsalon at Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin (2017).
Henrike Naumann lives and works in Berlin.
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- Michael E. Smith
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