Thursday, Jun 1, 2023, 8 pm – 10 pm
A Cooperation between documenta archiv and Staatstheater Kassel
With the second edition of the Proposal List, Staatstheater Kassel and documenta archiv will be extending an invitation to delve together into the depths of archival work. Theatrical means will be used to visualize the tangible complexity of artistic and curatorial processes in the archive. At the heart of the lecture-performance is German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) and her work “Leben? oder Theater?” (“Life? or Theater?”). Here she tells the stories of her Jewish family – a tragedy caught between persecution, fear and hope, between personal traumas, loneliness and longing for love, spanning the First World War through to the period of the Second World War. With the performance on June 1, we see Charlotte Salomon return to the Rotunda of the Fridericianum after eleven years: selected gouaches by the artist were already on show here at documenta 13. Today’s performers will explore the aesthetic radicalism and multimedia facets of her work in dialogue with Kerstin Brätsch’s installation Mimikry.