Without Title
(Spring Never Comes Again)

[2023]

HD video

Without Title (Spring Never Comes Again)
Collaboration between Jenny Brockmann, curator Joanna Kordjak and singer Barbara Kinga Majewska

For the exhibition “Spring Never Comes Again… . Children & Art in the 20th and 21st Century” at Galeria Zachęta, Warsaw, Jenny Brockmann created the installation ‘Without Title (Spring Never Comes Again’ (2023). The sound-video-installation had been realized in collaboration with curator Joanna Kordjak and singer Barbara Kinga Majewska and gave children drawings from the concentration camp Theresienstadt a ‘voice’, an ‘image’ as well as a ‘space’. The drawings were made in class of Jewish artist and architect Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Dicker-Brandeis had studied with Bauhaus master Gertrud Grunow and could use her method in the moment of the catastrophe. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis used her art workshops in Terezín to work with children […] These [classes] included ’automatic drawing’ […] which encouraged spontaneous, free expression, or ‘rhythmic exercises’ which helped increase concentration. These involved creating drawings that responded to the teacher’s changing tone and rhythm of speech. Children focused on her voice and breathing patterns, as a distraction from the terrifying reality around them. At the same time — in the spirit of Bauhaus pedagogy — they were encouraged to engage all their senses. Artist Jenny Brockmann and singer Barbara Kinga Majewska reverse this technique, interpreting children’s abstract works which are stored in the Jewish Museum in Prague collections.
Jenny Brockmanns object ‚Discourse Object #3‘ was also presented together with original works of art by Gertrud Grunow herself. ‚Discourse Object #3‘ had been produced as part of the project ‚Collective Dialogue G. Grunow‘ realized by Jenny Brockmann in 2018. The project focused on Gertrud Grunow who was the first and only female Bauhaus master teaching «Harmonisation Theory» at the Bauhaus from 1920 to 1924.

´Text by Joanna Kordjak (Galeria Zachęta)

In collaboration with: Galeria Zachęta, Jewish Museum, Prague, and Goethe-Institut Warsaw.
Funded by Goethe-Institut Warsaw.