Smiling at you

Since the turn of the millennium, Sharone Lifschitz (born in Israel, 1971; lives in London) has created a compelling body of work that addresses the themes of memory, identity, and language. Employing a range of media, including photography, video, prints, and installation art, Lifschitz investigates the relationship that we have with our individual and collective pasts and explores multifaceted aspects of human interactions and the language that facilitates them. To that end, she has devised imaginative strategies for propelling herself into the world. Her tools include advertisements placed in newspapers and systematic journeys undertaken by train, bus, and Underground. Traveling through Germany, Belgium, Ireland, and Great Britain and to Israel and the United States, Lifschitz has engaged and conversed with a variety of people. These interactions have provided her with the raw material for much of her art, which is characterized by empathy, humor, and a playful approach to language. Munich audiences will be familiar with Lifschitz’s citywide intervention, Speaking Germany, which accompanied the opening of the Jewish Museum in 2007, a part of which remains on the exterior walls of the Museum. Smiling at You will place that much-admired project within a broader context. One floor of the exhibition will present a selection of performative, studio-based, and video works; a second floor will showcase projects devoted to Germany and the city of Munich, culminating in the premiere of her specially commissioned video If I Were to Forget You - a meditation on the urban fabric of contemporary Munich in relation to the memories of several of the city’s Jewish refugees.

Details of exhibition catalogue: http://hdl.handle.net/10552/6371