Heidelberger Kunstverein

The "found subject" that is mentioned in the title of the exhibition is the German-Jewish author, translator and playwright Erich Hopp, who spent most of his life in Berlin between 1888 and 1949. A real historical figure, but virtually unknown today. Raphaela Vogel 'found' Hopp by chance when she moved into a house in Eichwalde, south-east of Berlin, a few years ago.

"Found Subject" is far more than an investigation of a place and the loosely interwoven, sometimes faded biographies in its history. Rather, the work quickly moves from the specific to the macro: to the painful experience of a time when belief in the emancipatory potential of aesthetic modernism collided with the totalitarian promises of fascism and its state-organised injustice.

The topicality of the exhibition stems from the fact that today, in different parts of the world, countless people are forced to hide from the henchmen of authoritarian states, from war, hatred, state despotism and persecution because of their origin, their skin colour, their religion, their refugee status or their way of life, because they are denied the right to exist by others. This horror does not affect only a certain group or a certain people, but is a reality everywhere and throughout human history. Empathy, which is much in demand today and sometimes even politically imposed, is a concept that is often misunderstood. It is overlooked that it is about the ability to understand the suffering of others, perhaps even of those who are supposedly on the "other side".

Curated by Søren Grammel