During the 2025/26 academic year, photography class Prof. Heidi Specker at the HGB Leipzig engaged intensively with Kollwitz. The result is 19 works in various media – ranging from sculpture and photography to film and installation.
Eight of these works are now on display as part of the exhibition KOLLWITZ Selected. at the KOLLWITZ MUSEUM KÖLN under the title BILDSTÖRUNG.
These positions approach Kollwitz from different perspectives: as an artist, as a woman, as a contemporary witness, or as a politically engaged individual.
They draw on her work, her artistic techniques, as well as her personal accounts in diaries, letters and photographs. The result is a range of explorations that are personal without remaining private.
Some take up Kollwitz’s visual language or motifs, whilst others examine the material conditions of her creative process, the person behind the work, or gaps in her body of work.
Jana Ehls focuses on what is absent, examining gaps in Kollwitz’s sculptural œuvre as well as the relationship between photography and sculpture. Surviving photographs and documents attest to the existence of over 40 sculptures, most of which were destroyed either during the war or by Kollwitz herself.
»What is missing (VIII)« directly refers to the discarded version of the memorial »Mourning Parents«, opening a dialogue with contemporary issues of war, remembrance, and loss.
In her artist’s book, Anita Olarescu draws on a portrait photograph of the artist taken by Hugo Erfurth in 1927. She interprets the tie as a symbol of authority with masculine connotations, through which Kollwitz deliberately relativises her identity and gender roles.
Heidi Specker: »A portrait of a woman, direct, honest, unvarnished. It is part of the series »In Front Of«. The theme of these photographs, taken in her personal environment, is precariousness — social, emotional, existential... in being.
I find encouragement in Käthe Kollwitz. The tension of the precarious is lost when the viewer feels comfortable while looking... Realism demands it. In showing and in being shown.«
Whilst Käthe Kollwitz’s works are unmistakably unique in their expression and message, a look at both history and the present clearly shows just how deeply her work is embedded in an ongoing artistic dialogue. This dialogue ranges from a general thematic, motivic and technical affinity with the works of other artists from every century to specific references to Kollwitz by later generations.
In our new exhibition series Bildstörung (Interference), starting in 2026, we will be showcasing works by artists who engage with Kollwitz’s works in various ways. Embedded within the presentation of the collection and placed in direct juxtaposition, parallels become apparent whilst, at the same time, familiar perspectives are challenged, new associations are encouraged and discourses are broadened.
RE: KOLLWITZ. Photography class, Prof. Heidi Specker / HGB Leipzig is the second Bildstörung in this series.
The works were created at the suggestion of the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz to mark the exhibition Traces of Proximity. Käthe Kollwitz and contemporary photography, 7.5.–30.8.2026).
