Exhibition "Making visible - traces of Jewish commitment"

With their civic and cultural commitment, Jewish citizens of Leipzig had a decisive influence on the city and the MdbK since the 19th century - until they were disenfranchised, persecuted, expelled, robbed and murdered under National Socialism. Knowledge of their work and their art collections is largely lost today. The MdbK wants to bring the names and stories of Leipzig's pioneering Jewish protagonists back into the public consciousness and the museum. Together with the artist Shlomit Lehavi and the publicist Sharon Adler, it has been searching for traces since 2024 in order to make forgotten and erased connections visible again. The exhibition can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig until June 28, 2026 as part of the Jewish theme year "Tacheles".

As an artistic intervention and visualization of the results, Lehavi's work Leerstellen Leerstellen is juxtaposed with Stephan Huber's donor mosaic in the foyer of the MdbK. The panel mosaic, which he created in 2004 for the museum's new building, unites patrons of the museum from three centuries in a group portrait. The historical image functions both as a reminder of the foundation mentality of the citizens of Leipzig in the 19th and early 20th centuries and as an invitation to continue this tradition in the future.

Making gaps visible expands the image of the donors and patrons depicted to include the Jewish protagonists and makes it clear that knowledge and history are dependent on the questions that guide them. Shlomit Lehavi works across genres and combines traditional techniques with media art methods.Making voids visible - an installation of digital drawings presented on a transparent screen - stands at the interface of video, drawing and interactive art. The work fits spatially into the foyer and creates a place of remembrance in the MdbK.

The researched biographies are made available to visitors as audio files in an audio station on site and online . The texts were created together with Sharon Adler, who also recorded them in German and English, thus lending her voice to the former Leipzig families. Making voids visible invites visitors to pause, act and observe and offers the opportunity to delve deep into forgotten family histories.