Ulrike Grossarth (*1952) had really wanted to be a dancer, but soon she branched out into performance and video. In the late 1980s she finally began to work as a visual artist. Her works have since explored the links between thought and action, memory and history. Now Grossarth is professor of “artistic cross-practice and mixed media” in Dresden.
Since 2006 the artist has engaged deeply with lost Jewish culture in the Polish city of Lublin. This important aspect of the town’s history was almost totally eradicated during the German occupation from 1939 to 1945, when its Jewish residents were murdered. Grossarth’s inspiration for the “Maskarada” series was a poster of 1927 that she came across in her research. It seems to have been an invitation to celebrate Purim in traditional costume. But the woman watching the viewer from behind her mask remains an enigma, marking the loss of Jewish life.
Maskarada
Series of 3 drawings
2016
Nitro-transfer printing and coloured pencil on cardboard
Erworben von der Künstlerin
Supported with funds of the State of Berlin - Senate Department for Culture and Europe 2016
