The NIBELUNGENLIED is a legendary epic so many have heard of, while few know the original. This medieval heroic saga is famous . The Russian artist Genia Chef, who has lived in the West for decades, is fascinated by the tragic violence of this epic; the eternal drama of love-hate, loyalty and betrayal, power games and battles, which through their rich contrasts are as if made for graphic interpretation. He draws with bird feathers and ink on papier déchiré prepared with tea stains and, as the art critic Mark Gisbourne writes in his foreword to the exhibition catalogue, uses „controlled chance“ for his elaborate picture cycle. “Chef’s drawings are less about storytelling but rather about illuminating a world.”

DISTANCE

Even standing still meters close to a tombstone, one is in steady movement; slowly and constantly moving away. The distance is not constant. Established during a cholera outbreak in 1831 the new Jewish cemetery in Brody (Lviv region, Ukraine) was intentionally situated far there from the city; in 1941 – 1943 thousands of Holocaust victims were buried here in mass graves. There is a distance between those who the tombstones represent too, a constant one perhaps. This work is an attempt to probe into the nature of our perception of all these distances.

The photo exhibition documents the struggle of the human rights award winner Sister Lorena Jenal against hatred and violence. The Swiss woman has lived in Papua New Guinea since the 1970s and helps families in need. The nun reacts with courage and energy to a new wave of human rights violations: Defenseless people are pilloried as alleged witches.