Eckhart Gillen Archives - Fritz Ascher Society

Feb 1, 2022

Boris Lurie:
Searching for Truth in Holocaust Images
Featuring Eckhart Gillen, PhD, Berlin (Germany)

Rachel Stern2022-02-06T07:18:15-05:00February 1st, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Boris Lurie:
Searching for Truth in Holocaust Images
Featuring Eckhart Gillen, PhD, Berlin (Germany)

In Claude Lanzmann’s seminal nine-and-a-half-hour film SHOAH, he chose not to use any images of the Holocaust, telling the story instead solely through the words of witnesses. By contrast, art historian Georges Didi-Huberman and contemporary artist Gerhard Richter have both emphasized the power of images to reflect and educate—the former in his book Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz, and the latter in a series of paintings titled “Birkenau.” Join the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Fritz Ascher Society for a lecture exploring the tension between these different perspectives on images, words, and the Holocaust with German art historian and curator Eckhart Gillen. Gillen grounds the discussion in the example of Boris Lurie, the subject [...]

Feb 10, 2021

Excluded and yet entangled in two dictatorships:
The political constructivist Oskar Nerlinger
Eckhart Gillen, Berlin

Rachel Stern2022-02-18T07:13:15-05:00February 10th, 2021|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Excluded and yet entangled in two dictatorships:
The political constructivist Oskar Nerlinger
Eckhart Gillen, Berlin

Oskar Nerlinger (1893-1969) was one of the most important artists of the committed art scene in the Weimar Republic. He was a member of the Association of Proletarian Revolutionary Art (ASSO for short), which was founded in 1928 and belonged to the KPD, which cooperated with the Soviet avant-garde artist group Oktober. At that time there was no conflict between positions of aesthetic modernism and KPD politics. In 1932 the political and artistic avant-garde in the Soviet Union fell apart, with serious consequences for left-wing artists in Germany. Almost at the same time, the Nazi system broke with all forms of modernity. With his idea of art suddenly doubly isolated within his own party, which followed Stalin's art verdict, [...]

Jan 10, 2021

FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter January 2021

Rachel Stern2021-02-24T05:46:01-05:00January 10th, 2021|Newsletter|Comments Off on FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter January 2021

Dear Friends, Please join us, the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the German Consulate General in New York TOMORROW, January 19 at 2:00pm ET for a stirring performance of Carolyn Enger’s Mischlinge Exposé, which will be live streamed from Edmond J. Safra Hall. The performance will be followed by a discussion. Registration link for the livestream HERE. Carolyn Enger is a pianist based in the greater New York City area, with roots reaching back to Breslau, now Wroclaw, Poland. Her “Mischlinge Exposé” brings to light the stories of Mischlinge—a derogatory term used by the Nazis to describe people with both Jewish and Aryan ancestry—like her father and godmother, interwoven [...]

Aug 5, 2020

Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression

Jewish Identity and Communist Belief.
Lea Grundig’s Path from Dresden to Palestine and back to Dresden
Lecture by Eckhart Gillen, Berlin

Rachel Stern2020-08-05T22:20:06-04:00August 5th, 2020|Events, Past Events|Comments Off on Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression

Jewish Identity and Communist Belief.
Lea Grundig’s Path from Dresden to Palestine and back to Dresden
Lecture by Eckhart Gillen, Berlin

Watch the video of this event HERE Lecture featuring Eckhart Gillen, Independent Curator based in Berlin, Germany Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York The lecture tells how the daughter of the Jewish clothing and furniture retailer Moritz Langer leaves her family's Orthodox milieu to study at the Dresden Art Academy. There she meets art student Hans Grundig. With him she joined the German Communist Party in 1926. From now on she wanted to put her art at the service of the working class. After returning from exile in Palestine, she used her art for the newly founded GDR. There she had a career as a professor and as president of the Association [...]

Jul 9, 2020

FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter #33, July 2020

Rachel Stern2020-07-15T15:54:15-04:00July 9th, 2020|Newsletter|Comments Off on FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter #33, July 2020

Dear Friends, Antisemitism and racism are not the same. But they are both based on the lack of regard to the values this country was founded on: freedom, justice and equality. As a proud immigrant, I deeply believe in these values, admire the dynamic energy of this country, and hope that this unprecedented time helps speed up the process towards realizing these ideals of freedom, justice and equality for all. As an individual and as the executive director of the Fritz Ascher Society, I strive to do my part in this process. The Fritz Ascher Society tells the stories of artists, who lived and worked in Germany, as the country abandoned its first and very fragile democracy and instead [...]

Feb 12, 2020

Panel Discussion
Expressionisms: Germany and the United States
Camp Concert Hall
Modlin Center for the Arts
Richmond, VA

Rachel Stern2020-03-03T08:46:09-05:00February 12th, 2020|Events, Past Events|Comments Off on Panel Discussion
Expressionisms: Germany and the United States
Camp Concert Hall
Modlin Center for the Arts
Richmond, VA

February 12, 2020 6:00-8:00pm Camp Concert Hall Modlin Center for the Arts 453 Westhampton Way Richmond, VA 23173 Information: 804-289-8276 Panel Discussion Expressionisms: Germany and the United States Among the diverse descriptive labels attached to the art of Fritz Ascher, perhaps none is more evocative and distinct than "expressionist." In the context of visual art, that term has, over the past century and a half, connoted the articulation of strong emotion--through color, brush work, and the aggressive representation of figures and the elements of nature. This discussion will consider ways in which these features, particularly in painting, can explore and have explored embodying emotion and provoking it in the viewer. Also discussed will be the relationships of political identity, the workings of [...]

Feb 6, 2020

FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter #30, February 2020

Rachel Stern2020-02-06T08:01:15-05:00February 6th, 2020|Newsletter|Comments Off on FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter #30, February 2020

Dear Friends, “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” is now on view at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia, until May 24 (link). You can listen to my opening lecture here. “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia In every venue, different hanging bring out new aspects of single artworks, and unexpected connections between artworks provide new insights. The Harnett Museum of Art is no exception. For the first time, “The Tortured” (“Der Gequälte”) takes up center stage. It is a monumental painting measuring 59 x 79.4 inches. Fritz Ascher created it in the 1920s, as social and racial tensions in [...]

Dec 10, 2019

FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter #29, December 2019

Rachel Stern2019-12-10T06:06:07-05:00December 10th, 2019|Newsletter|Comments Off on FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter #29, December 2019

Dear Friends, Today I have exciting news: on November 13, the Fritz Ascher Stiftung (Fritz Ascher Foundation) was founded at Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin (City Museum Berlin) (link). The foundation's board of trustees consists of Paul Spies, director of Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Eckhart Gillen, art historian and curator, and Rachel Stern, director of the Fritz Ascher Society. from left: Paul Spies, Peter-Stephan Prause, Eva Bünte, Rachel Stern, Martina Weinland, Peter Bünte Ephraim Palais, Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Berlin (Germany) The foundation was initiated by private collectors of the artistic work of Fritz Ascher, to give his work a publicly accessible home and to present it in the context of his artistic contemporaries in [...]

May 19, 2016

Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art

Newsletter #6, May 2016

Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:44:40-05:00May 19th, 2016|Newsletter|Comments Off on Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art

Newsletter #6, May 2016

Dear Friends, As we are drawn to spend more time outside in the lovely spring weather, this newsletter is all about Fritz Ascher’s late landscapes that became the focus of his work after 1945. Trees, late 1950s ©Bianca Stock, Munich Frank Auerbach, Mornington Crescent Looking South, 1997 ©Frank Auerbach, courtesy Marlborough Fine Art In dozens and dozens of intense paintings and gouaches intoxicated with color, Ascher turns to nature painting in the broadest sense. Among them are landscapes, woodland scenes, portraits of individual trees, groups of trees, all inspired by hours of walking in the nearby Grunewald. In his catalogue essay accompanying the upcoming Fritz Ascher retrospective, Eckhart Gillen relates the aesthetic practice and behavior of the two painters Fritz [...]