An exhibition titled ‘Memory – Image – Word: Arnold Daghani and Charlotte Salomon’ will run at the Jewish Museum, Frankfurt, from 12 October 2012 to 3 February 2013. The exhibition has been co-curated by Dr Deborah Schultz and the works by Daghani have been drawn from the University of Sussex collection.

Opened by Dr Gideon Reuveni, the exhibition raises fundamental questions about the interplay between images and words in twentieth century art. Salomon’s Life? Or Theatre?: A Song-play, produced during the early 1940s under the threat of deportation, provides a sequence in which the urgency of the age is transmuted into the visual qualities of the work, underscored by allusions to musical motifs. Daghani’s extended diaries, such as What a Nice World, employ a layering of words and images cumulatively enriched over an extended period of time. However, although Daghani’s practice is structured according to a diary format, and Salomon’s theatrical fiction may be mistaken for autobiography, the works of both artists go far beyond the narrowly personal to explore the historical legacy of the Holocaust, the effects of exile, displacement and migration, the persistence of memory, and the problems of verbal/visual representation. In the works of Salomon and Daghani the private and the public are subtly interwoven, resulting in complex and multi-layered works, intricately combining biographical elements with historical documentation and making a significant contribution to our knowledge of a specific historical period and region.

The exhibition examines the reception of both artists who are only belatedly achieving recognition. For decades their work remained invisible, and, even after rediscovery, their achievements encountered critical and institutional resistance with the use of word-image combinations proving a particular obstacle. Their works were marginalised, neglected and even dismissed as too personal or too political. The exhibition will trace the ways in which the changes in reception of their works reflects wider art historical patterns, with Charlotte Salomon exhibited this year at Documenta 13 in Kassel.

Further information: http://juedischesmuseum.de/fileadmin/user_upload/uploadsJM/Images/Wechselausstellungen/Daghani_Salomon/Daghani_Salomon_Einladung.pdf