Yael Bartana - Redemption Now

About

From 4 June 2021, the Jewish Museum Berlin will present Yael Bartana – Redemption Now. This large-scale solo exhibition of the contemporary artist Yael Bartana investigates the power of imagination and art’s redemptive potential. For more than twenty years, Bartana has been inquiring into grand historical narratives that help to constitute national and other collective identities.

The show brings together more than fifty early and more recent works, including video installations, photographs, and neon works.

Please note that a visit to the museum is currently only possible with a time slot ticket. You can book theese in advance in our ticket shop.

The exhibition follows an eschatological topos – the recurring idea that a leader may bring salvation – and its deconstruction. At the core of the show is the commissioned video work Malka Germania (Hebrew for “Queen Germania”), which Bartana conceived for the Jewish Museum and produced at historically charged locations across Berlin. 

An androgynous savior figure comes to the German capital. Her journey floods the city with scenes from an imagined collective unconscious; past and future merge in an alternative present. The installation’s theme of collective redemption addresses traumata, hopes of salvation, and the desire for change. 

Yael Bartana’s works have been exhibited worldwide and form part of international collections. She is known for exploring the visual languages of identity and memory politics, nations, and social movements.

Yael Bartana observes, documents, dissects, and reinvents public rituals, ceremonies, and social practices that are intended to build collective identities. Her art provokes an activist viewing – asking visitors to engage in the political act of reflecting on their responsibility in society.

Yael Bartana was born in Israel in 1970 and currently lives in Amsterdam and Berlin.