In her lecture performance Die Politiker gehen von Haus zu Haus (“The Politicians Go from House to House”), Ute Richter tells the story of the war volunteer Peter Kollwitz and Käthe Kollwitz’s political posters. Entries from Käthe Kollwitz’s diary, read by actress Verena Noll, offer a nuanced perspective that challenges political instrumentalisation. To achieve this, one must be willing to endure contradictions.
With the introduction of the new military service in Germany, conscription examinations for 18-year-old men will once again become mandatory starting in 2027. To mark this occasion, the lecture performance focuses on the story of Peter Kollwitz, a war volunteer and the youngest son of Käthe Kollwitz. He volunteered for military service in August 1914 and died during one of his first combat missions—on the night of October 22–23, 1914. Ten days after leaving for the front, at the age of 18. This loss shaped Käthe Kollwitz’s subsequent work. Her famous poster Never Again War (1924) was created for the anti-war demonstration organized by the Social Democratic Workers’ Youth in Leipzig, ten years after the start of World War I.
In the GDR, Käthe Kollwitz was revered—and politically exploited—because of the socially critical themes in her drawings. This event takes a critical look at the continued instrumentalisation of her art that continued in 1993 with the installation of a replica of her sculpture Mother with Dead Son (1938) at the Neue Wache in Berlin.
Ute Richter explores themes of political public sphere and memory. She develops her artistic research within the context of everyday life, architecture, and urban space. Her interdisciplinary work encompasses installation, video, interventions in public space, print media, and drawing.
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