Leni Riefenstahl by Noah Davis: A Painting and its Photographic Reference
Tickets
Conversation between Kathleen Reinhardt and Katrin Peters-Klaphake, moderated by Paola Malavassi
(left) Kathleen Reinhardt, Photo: Courtesy Georg Kolbe Museum, (right) Katrin Peters-Klaphake, Photo: Juliane Eirich
November 28, 2024, 7 PM
Leni Riefenstahl, painted by an African-American artist: this is what makes Noah Davis’ eponymous work in his current retrospective at MINSK so complex. The source image for the work was one of Leni Riefenstahl’s photographs, which was published in her photo book Die Nuba von Kau in 1976. Davis’ painting Leni Riefenstahl not only depicts the film director and Hitler supporter, as the title might suggest, but also an unclothed Black man carrying the artist’s photo bag.
Leni Riefenstahl’s Nuba photographs and films are currently being researched in a joint cataloging project by the Ethnological Museum Berlin and the Art Library, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, with representatives of the Nuba societies. Katrin Peters-Klaphake is working significantly on this for the photography collection. As director of the Kolbe Museum Berlin, Kathleen Reinhardt looks after the estate of the sculptor Georg Kolbe and critically examines his position in the Third Reich. Paola Malavassi, Director of the MINSK and curator of the Noah Davis exhibition, talks to these two scholars about Noah Davis’ painting and how to deal with highly charged estates.
Note: The exhibition can be visited before the talk from 6 PM and is included in the event ticket.
The talk will be held in German.