Malmö Konsthall opens Lenke Rothman – Life as Cloth

The autumn exhibition at Malmö Konsthall presents an extensive selection of works by Lenke Rothman (1929–2008). Rothman was a Swedish-Hungarian artist and author who came to Malmö with Red Cross transportation in 1945, after liberation from a Nazi concentration camp. The exhibition Life as Cloth highlights Lenke Rothman's unique, conceptual approach to her working materials. On the 19th of September, Malmö Konsthall and Moderna Museet Malmö invite you to a joint press preview ahead of the opening of the art season.

Lenke Rothman experimented early on with different types of materials and explored their inherent narrative potential. By insisting on the ability of materials to speak, express, and remember, she created multifaceted and deeply personal works throughout her sixty-year long artistic career. She drew inspiration from unconventional artistic materials and everyday objects. Buttons, safety pins, tickets, children's drawings, receipts, plastic bags—fragments and traces of life—were pieced together in complex and surprising ways, in constant dialogue with each other.

Rothman's process of sewing, sticking and patching things together can be likened to a processing of past events where time, objects, and memories form the fabric of life. The materials serve as a link to life, encouraging the viewer to become more attuned to the symbolic world around us, to moments and things that pulsate with life.

"Rothman’s work can be seen as a work of repair, both concrete and idea-based: the artist perforated, sewed, or fastened together with safety pins fragments of unconventional artistic materials such as plastic, fabric and paper to the image surface. Evident in her practice is a connection to a personal healing process, to the body’s scar tissue and the visible traces of lived experiences that cannot be hidden. At the same time her work refers to a wider context: that of repairing the world, stitch by stitch, using the technology of memory", says Mats Stjernstedt, Director of Malmö Konsthall.

An extensive production

The curators for the exhibition are the researcher Rebecka Katz Thor, the artist Runo Lagomarsino and Mats Stjernstedt. Most of the works come from the latter half of the 1960’s and 1970’s, which was an exceptionally productive working period for Rothman. Her extensive production includes paintings, drawings, installations, books, sculptures, objects and textile works. A selection of her work was shown at Malmö Konsthall in 1989-90, as a part of the exhibition Manifestations of Life.

A recurring theme in Rothman's artistic practice is the search for an answer to the question: "How can life be saved and preserved from constant ongoing destruction?" For the artist, art appeared as a form of ethical necessity, not just as a means of expression for her as an individual, but for a society to grieve, to continue living, and to strive towards a better future.

"Lenke Rothman collected, she organised and presented, thimbles, dolls, scraps of fabric, buttons and newspaper clippings in collage and assemblage. Every little thing can become something more and something different. She collected in a way that is recognisable after experiences of war and trauma, of the Holocaust, where losing everything results in a later need to ensure that nothing more can be taken away", says curator Rebecka Katz Thor.

Came to Malmö from Bergen-Belsen

Lenke Rothman arrived alone in Malmö at the age of sixteen, after being liberated from the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Besides her, only her brother survived the Holocaust; the other eight family members died.

Rothman herself was in a severely weakened state upon arrival and suffered from tuberculosis. She spent six years in various sanatoriums, nursing homes, and hospitals, a period that marked the beginning of her artistic career. However, her artistic practice should not be viewed only through the lens of her being a survivor, it also addresses questions of belonging, memory, identity, and corporeality.

"Many of Rothman’s works bring together the personal and political space. The Holocaust is always present in her work, and the materiality in the works carry a resistance to extermination. They say: We live, we exist. Her work is an activation and at the same time an archiving of materials", says curator Runo Lagomarsino.

The thread, the stitch, and the cloth are central to Rothman’s visual world. She herself speaks of the significance of fabric, influenced by the concentration camps:

“When even my clothing was taken from me, I realized how much our clothes are our second skin, our second identity. And my memories of the patterns on the clothes worn by my mother and my little sister are so strong that when the facial features of those closest to me, who were taken from me, start to fade, I can still remember the patterns and textures of their clothes. I’ve even rephrased “from dust you are made” to “from fabric you are made.” Our lives are cut, sewn, and reformed as if they were made of fabric” (Lenke Rothman, interviewed by Niclas Östlind in the catalogue for the exhibition Gifts at Dunkers Kulturhus in 2008).

The exhibition runs from the 21st of September 2024 to the 19th of January 2025, and is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, created in collaboration with the publishing house Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite, Berlin.

Joint Press Preview with Moderna Museet Malmö

On the 21st of September, the exhibition The Fantastic and Horrific featuring Marija Prymatjenko and works from the Moderna Museet collection will open. Marija Prymatjenko (1909–1997) is a central figure in Ukrainian art history and one of the country's most well-known and renowned artists.

On the 19th of September, Malmö Konsthall and Moderna Museet Malmö invite you to a joint press preview ahead of the opening of the autumn exhibitions. The press event begins at Moderna Museet and continues on at Malmö Konsthall. Transportation between the institutions will be offered for journalists who wish to attend both press viewings. Coffee, tea, and sandwiches will be served at Moderna Museet.

09:30: Press preview at Moderna Museet Malmö of the exhibition The Fantastic and Horrific with Marija Prymatjenko and works from the Moderna Museet collection. Elisabeth Millqvist, Director of Moderna Museet Malmö, presents the exhibition in the presence of Liudmyla Strokova, Director of The National Museum of Decorative Art of Ukraine in Kyiv, and the Marija Prymachenko Family Foundation.

10:30: Transport to Malmö Konsthall

11:00: Press viewing at Malmö Konsthall of the exhibition Life as Cloth by Lenke Rothman, presented by curators Mats Stjernstedt, Runo Lagomarsino, and Rebecka Katz Thor.

Please RSVP by the 16th of September to Heidi Hakala (Malmö Konsthall) at heidi.hakala@malmo.se or Alexandra Giertz (Moderna Museet Malmö) at a.giertz@modernamuseet.se. Indicate whether you will attend both press viewings or just one, and if you require transport. When registering, please mention which publication or media you represent.

Press images available for download here with password press2024: https://malmokonsthall.se/pres...