»[...] no one knows me, only you know how I am, only to you I have given myself as I am, other people don't need to know that either« - words that Benjamine van der Meer de Walcheren addressed to her future husband Georg Kolbe. She wrote them in one of the countless letters that an estate find revealed in 2019. The Georg Kolbe Museum is devoting itself to these transcripts between 5 March and 29 May in the exhibition No One Knows Me. It shows previously unknown facets of Benjamine Kolbe and places them alongside the sculptures and sketches of her likeness that were penned by her husband.
The newly acquired knowledge about Benjamine Kolbe meets the works of Iris Häussler (1962) in the Kolbe Museum. If - an unforeseen encounter complements the Kolbe exhibition with appropriate visual material. Häussler recreates the Kolbe couple's encounter with the help of two of her fictional characters. Visitors experience their story of the French painter Sophie La Rosière (1867-1948) and the nude model Florence Hasard (1882-?). The Kolbe Museum completes the exhibition with Häussler's sombre paintings, which evoke associations with human organs. At the centre of Häussler's work show is the titular installation If - the result of her research work on women's art-making in the early 20th century. The installation puts it into narrative form and links it to historical material from the Georg Kolbe Museum archive.
Born in 1881, Benjamine van der Meer de Walcheren bore Kolbe's common surname from 1902 when she married. Her premature death in 1927 moved the widower and sculptor Georg Kolbe to his residential studio, where the museum named after him is located today. He had it built in 1928 as a retreat near his wife's grave.
Iris Häussler is a contemporary artist. Her main focus is on conceptual art and installations. Häussler was born in 1962 in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and now lives in Toronto. She likes to stage "fictional legacies" and spin stories around historical figures.
