WELCOME

The Center for Persecuted Arts, Solingen

The Center for Persecuted Arts is a museum of discovery dedicated exclusively to artists whose opportunities for development and works were blocked, prevented, or annihilated by the dictatorships of the last century and totalitarian regimes up to the present day. It is a cross-genre museum, and its Collection of Art and Literature tells of lost, forgotten, and barely considered works of art, stories, and fates.

Rediscovered: The painter and trans* woman Toni Ebel
Exhibition „Toni Ebel 1881–1961, painter – a search for traces“
„I want to go to the boundless...“
XXIV. Else Lasker-Schüler-Forum from May 11 – 14, 2023
Solingen '93
Bize hikayenizi anlatın! Share your memories!
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LECTURE: in the National Museum of World Cultures, Mexico City

Boris Lurie in Mexico: The Unimaginable Nearness of One’s Own Death

On December 8, 1941, seventeen-year-old Boris Lurie’s mother, grandmother, sister, and childhood sweetheart are murdered near Riga in the Rumbula Massacre, the “Holocaust by Bullets.” This trauma will be permanently etched into Boris Lurie’s life and art. For him, December of 1941 is when the world loses its innocence.

 

For others, December 8, 1941 is a joyful day. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera will celebrate their first wedding anniversary for a second time. Anna Seghers, a German Jew, will reach Mexico City and live through the Shoah in exile.

 

In his lecture, Holocaust art expert Jürgen Kaumkötter traces these imagined connections, placing the work of Boris Lurie within the wider context of the history of his times, and of art history.

 

The event will be streamed via the YouTube-Channel of the Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo on March 24, 2023 at 0:00 a.m. CET

PROGRAM: Press Freedom Day and Else Lasker-Schüler Forum in May 2023

„Fahrenheit 451“ and „I want to go to the boundless...“

90 years ago: On May 10, 1933, books were burned in Germany – what happened afterwards is well known. On Press Freedom Day, Wednesday, May 3, 2023, at 7:30 p.m., the Else Lasker-Schüler Society and the Supporters’ Association of the Center for Persecuted Arts invite you to a slide show with recitation and singing about Ray Bradbury’s novel „Fahrenheit 451“ and the film adaptation by François Truffaut.

The Museum Center for Persecuted Arts is again a co-organizer of the XXIV Else Lasker-Schüler-Forum, which will take place from May 11 to 14, 2023 in Wuppertal and Solingen. In the light of the 90th anniversary of the book burnings in Germany in 1933, a varied program of theatre, music and talks was put together under the title “I want to go to the boundless…”.

 

At the opening on May 11, 2023, Günter Verheugen, ex-EU Commissioner, will speak about „border issues“ and the multimedia poetry project „Friendship in Times of War“ will be premiered.

JOI IN: Bize hikayenizi anlatın! Share your memories! From May 2 to 19, 2023

Solingen ’93 – Unutturmayacağız! Never forget!

Share your memories and join us in commemorating the time around the Solingen arson attack in 1993!

 

Your short statements and stories will become an „archive of the present age“ in the exhibition and then permanently at the Solingen city archive.

 

To work together against exclusion, racism and xenophobia: shaping commemoration together!

EXHIBITION: Toni Ebel 1881–1961, painter – a search for traces

Rediscovered: The painter and trans* woman Toni Ebel

Toni Ebel is considered one of the pioneers in the representation of trans* identities in 20th century art. She went her own way courageously and self-determined: around 1930 she underwent gender reassignment surgery in Berlin and converted to Judaism in 1933, the faith of her partner. She survived the Nazi regime in exile in Czechoslovakia and in 1949 found recognition for her art in the early GDR.

The exhibition, conceived by the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e.V., Berlin, presents artistic works by Ebel in photographic reproductions and provides detailed insights into the life, work and influence of the artist.

EXHIBITION: since May 2021 until further notice at the Center for Persecuted Arts.

„... and to say loudly: no.“

The Max-Leven-Zentrum Solingen is named after Max Leven, a feuilletonist of the “Bergische Arbeiterstimme” who was murdered during Kristallnacht in November 1938.

The first exhibition of the association Max-Leven-Zentrum Solingen e.V. lays the basis for the development of the future educational and memorial site on Max-Leven-Gasse. It shows aspects of resistance and persecution, the perpetrators as well as the majority society, the effects of the NS system and the war on the city of Solingen.

What forms, strategies and conditions were there for resistance against the Nazi regime in Solingen? How did it work, where did it fail? What were the effects of a lack of resistance?

Events and Guided Tours

Every Sunday, the Center for Persecuted Arts offers public tours of its exhibitions. Pre-registration is not necessary.

  • 13:00 – guided tour of the permanent exhibition


You are also welcome to request a private guided tour from us. We also offer guided tours in Turkish and English as well as educational offers such as workshops and guided tours on various topics for school classes.

Please contact us by mail
info@verfolgte-kuenste.de
or by phone +49 212 258 1418.

For the visit of the exhibitions as well as for events the distance and hygiene regulations of the Corona protection regulation of the country North Rhine-Westphalia apply furthermore.

Kachel_Bürgerstiftung

The Civic Foundation for Persecuted Arts

In the Center for Persecuted Arts, pictures, books, journals, documents, and photographs tell little-known stories of flight, expulsion, and persecution—but also of how art can give hope. In the permanent exhibition of the museum’s Collection of Art and Literature and the Civic Foundation for Persecuted Arts – Else Lasker-Schüler Center – Gerhard Schneider Art Collection, as well as in the archive, 3,500 objects can be discovered on more than 700 square meters.

Videos and films from the museum

Immediately after its founding, the Center for Persecuted Arts expanded its forms of expression through the feature-length documentary film Kichka. Life Is a Cartoon, produced in cooperation with the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art Kraków. Since its founding, the center has also collaborated on the ARD project Auschwitz und Ich (Auschwitz and Me). The accompaniment of projects, exhibitions, and events through films has become an integral part of the museum’s program. Here, you can find many of our films and video contributions…

Association of Friends and Patrons of the Center for Persecuted Arts

#We_remember_We_shape!

On the occasion of the museum’s fifth birthday, an association was founded on November 6, 2020 to support and enrich the program. Sebastian Greif, Barbara Antonia Löcherbach, Sylvia Löhrmann (Chairwoman), and Uli Preuß were elected to the board.
The founding of this association would not have been possible without the commitment of the citizens of Solingen. The aim of the association is to bring together interested people from Solingen and the surrounding area and to help shape the cultural life of the city. Would you also like to get involved in the newly founded association and support our museum? Then please contact

Sound Bites and Podcasts from the Museum

During the first lockdown of the Corona pandemic in April 2020, the Center for Persecuted Arts launched a podcast series. Born out of necessity, it has become a regular and popular program. The podcasts feature artists represented in the collection of the Civic Foundation for Persecuted Arts, but also respond to current social issues, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the toppling of monument in the United States, comics in the Third Reich, and the American photographer Lee Miller.

SEVEN PLACES –
in Germany

SEVEN PLACES is an online exhibition of the Center for Persecuted Arts, realized with the support of the UNO’s Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme. As a multimedia educational resource for remembrance and enlightenment and as a network of international partners, the online exhibition also invites you to make discoveries: With the help of a timeline, it keeps both the memory of the Shoah and the ongoing discourse on the culture of remembrance alive. As a visitor, you can scroll through time and the places of remembrance, vividly understanding how they came into being, how they changed, how they were partly destroyed, and how they were brought back to life again.

Museum staff

Jürgen Joseph Kaumkötter, M. A. Director, General Manager Zentrum für verfolgte Künste gGmbH kaumkoetter@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Birte Fritsch, M.A. Curator fritsch@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Anna Schröfel, M.Sc. (in parental leave) Management schroefel@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Susanne Vieten, M.A. Registry, exhibition secretariat vieten@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Alexandra Peter, M.A. Head of Art Education peter@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Marielena Buonaiuto, M.A. Collection and Re­search, Conservator buonaiuto@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Hanna Sauer, M.A. Collection and Re­search sauer@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Judith Steinig-Lange NRW research traineeship Multidirectional memory in the context of the arts steinig-lange@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Wulf Tieck Fa­cil­i­ty Ma­n­age­ment tieck@verfolgte-kuenste.de

Sebastian Quitmann Fa­cil­i­ty Ma­n­age­ment quitmann@verfolgte-kuenste.de