The Fabric of Lublin

A remarkable photo series by the Lublin photographer Stefan Kielsznia (1911-1987) depicts life in the Jewish quarter of Lublin shortly before it was occupied and destroyed by the Germans in World War II. Commissioned by the Lublin municipal administration in 1938, Kielsznia took approximately 600 pictures of buildings and streets scenes in the Jewish quarter. Today it represents a unique document of Jewish daily life in Poland prior to the war. To our present knowledge, about a quarter of these photos only exists as negatives. The project systematically examined and digitalized them.
This collection of remarkable photos was discovered by the artist Ulrike Grossarth, a professor at the College of Fine Arts in Dresden, on one of her many trips through eastern Europe. She has intensively studied Jewish history and channelled her findings into her artistic works for years. Grossarth uses black-and-white photos of shops, signs and advertisements from the 1930s as a basis for paintings in which she abstracts photographic details or reconstructs them in colour. An exhibition in Dresden and a presentation in Lublin featured these historic photographs together with Grossarth's new works of art. The photo series were published and scientifically studied in an extensive trilingual publication (German, English, Polish).

Artistic director: Silke Wagler
Curators: Marcin Federowicz (PL), Christiane Mennicke
Artist: Ulrike Grossarth

Venues and schedule:
Kunsthaus Dresden, Städtische Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, 11 June - 19 September 2010
Book presentation: Osrodek "Brama Grodzka-Teatr" Lublin, Poland, September 2010