Statement:

The late 1960s were a momentous time of political and social unrest, artistic solidarity and experimentation in West Germany, often combined with anti-capitalist criticism. For Ilse Henin, who was studying in those years, it was a formative time. In the late 1970s, however, she took a sabbatical from art, as she - like many of her colleagues - found it too male-dominated the art world. It always seemed necessary to her to create an artistic and social counterculture within society and to continuously develop a work from the position of the outsider, Based on the works of Ilse Henin, a network is woven into the five younger, contemporary positions in the exhibition.

 The works of Keltie Ferris (1977 in Louisville/USA), Ilse Henin ( 1944 in Cologne/DE), Hayv Kahraman (1981 in Baghdad/IRQ), Gisela McDaniel (1995 in Nebraska/USA), Soraya Sharghi ( 1988 in Tehran/IRN) and Emma Talbot (1969 in London) are united by the interweaving of supposedly classic motifs that are read as female, but they have all developed them into completely different subjects.///

"Feminine" as a motif is placed in a contemporary context. The woman is no longer a beautiful accessory or a projection screen for the male gaze , but the main character and identity bearer of the work. Women, as individuals, in groups, or as part of a family or tribe, stand up for themselves and for all they represent. They are strong, self-determined and position-aware heroines of a new narrative of femininity. At the same time, classic notions of femininity and masculinity are questioned. Materials and techniques sometimes read as “female” or “feminine”, such as fabric, beads, yarn or sewing, embroidery, collage, are also taken up and placed in a contemporary context. These aesthetics, long degraded as handicraft or decorative, are used loudly and exuberantly and with expressive and impulsive colors in an almost trendy way. The works of the six artists thus show a processuality that leads the viewer from the 1960s to the present day, from painting to drawing to sculpture and installation, from femininity to masculinity to diversity. Above all, however, it is a process of strengthening, of empowerment. In the works themselves, but also in their composition, groups, associations and processes are formed which, despite their differences, reveal numerous parallels. They show the fight for justice and self-determination, which recently culminated in the feminist revolution in Iran, which artists have had to fight regularly for a long time and still do today in an (art) world that is still dominated by cis males.

The title of the exhibition The Unbreakable Interweaving of All Lives refers to an interview by The Collective Eye with Judith Butler from KUNSTFORUM International, Volume 285, in which Judith Butler emphasizes the necessity of collective coexistence for justice in society. The exhibition The Inescapable Interweaving of All Lives is part of a series of investigations into the physical and its significance for being human, to which the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf has devoted itself time and again for several years.