Frédéric Brenner – ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES

Photo Exhibition

Tryptichon of three photographs: 1. person in front of easel in a basement room, 2. person alone in the auditorium of an empty theater, 3. two people on tables in a room with stucco and chandelier

From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner; Jewish Museum Berlin, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

For over four decades, the internationally acclaimed photographer Frédéric Brenner has been questioning through his lens the multiple appearances and representations of Jewish life in diaspora, as a case study of the human condition.

His new photographic essay, ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES, was created between 2016 and 2019, when he explored Berlin as stage for a vast spectrum of expressions and performances of Jewishness. Portraying landscapes and individuals — newcomers, old-timers, converts, immigrants and others who have made Berlin their home or were just passing through — he picks apart prevailing ideas and conceptions in order to explore new perspectives and offers a fresh view of issues and people in and around the Jewish-German story.

Past exhibition

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The Libeskind building is marked in green

Where

Libeskind Building, ground level, Eric F. Ross Gallery
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin

Where, when, what?

All offers for the exhibition

Brenner picks apart prevailing ideas and conceptions in order to explore new perspectives.

Frédéric Brenner’s images evolve from extensive research, observation, and many, many conversations. To him, taking pictures means, first and foremost, encounters with individuals to whom he offers space to (re)present themselves.

Not pretending to bring forth a rigorous account of the Jewish situation in Germany today nor a visual definition of the contemporary Jew, he offers a series of fragmentary insights into this incubator of paradox and dissonance, reflecting on conflicting narratives of redemption and shedding light on an ever-so-present absence.

(9 items)
  • Photograph of a man divided along the longitudinal axis, as it were, into two halves: on the left side he wears a shirt and bald head, on the right a full beard and a (halved) shtreimel on his head

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Two people in a room with tables and chairs, a grand piano and golden stucco on the ceiling: the woman is standing on one of the tables with white tablecloth, the man is lying with his back on another one, some chairs have fallen over

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • A couple, he in black suit with hat and white beard, she in floral dress with turquoise glasses, pose in a large, very colorfully decorated room, in front of them a blue bunny sculpture

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Photography of woman in blue summer dress sitting on the ground in the forest and grabbing her hair above her forehead

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Photography of a naked man lying prone on gravelly earth, a passage from Adorno's Minima Moralia is tattooed in two columns on his back

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Photography of two twin sisters in blue dungarees on folding chairs in a studio, on the wall a picture with chair motifs, on the floor dog and pigeon sculptures

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Photography of a pregnant woman in a flower dress and a young man with a dark beard at a dining table, on it three pieces of baklava, on the wall behind them a painting with zebra legs and many colors

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Photography of a person in front of an easel in a basement room, in the background there is a construction site sign on the floor

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  • Photography of a person alone on one of the red seats in the audience of an empty theater, resting his head in his hands

    From the photographic essay ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES by Frédéric Brenner, JMB, purchased with the support of the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin

Like a shattered mirror, his images offer a polyphonic, sometimes bizarre and disturbing reflection of and on a topography of displacement and estrangement, far beyond the story of Berlin or of Jews. Avoiding the possibility to add up to an all-inclusive and definitive statement, these fragments invite viewers to reweave them into ever-changing stories.

(5 items)
  • A visitor walks between two walls of large-scale portraits: one shows a man cut in two, as it were, with half a beard and shtreimel, one shows a naked man lying prone on the floor

    View of the exhibition; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • Two large-format photographs in an exhibition room with the inclined windows of the Libeskind building: one shows a man from behind in a study, one a landscape with wintry bare trees

    View of the exhibition; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • View of the exhibition with winding light gray walls, in which the colorful portrait photos are embedded

    View of the exhibition; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • Panorama view of the exhibition with four portraits and a characteristic window of the Libeskind building

    View of the exhibition; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • View into the exhibition with exhibition walls with portrait photos placed diagonally to each other, in the foreground right the photo of a stage with various people in and on cabinets and boxes

    View of the exhibition; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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The Jewish Museum Berlin will premiere ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES starting September 2021.

We would like to thank the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin for purchasing the photographic essay for the JMB collection.

Exhibition Information at a Glance

  • When 3 Sep 2021 to 24 Apr 2022
  • Where Libeskind Building, ground level, Eric F. Ross Gallery
    Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin 
    See Location on Map
Person alone on one of the red seats in the auditorium of an empty theater, head resting in hands

Exhibition Frédéric Brenner – ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES: Features & Programs

Exhibition Webpage
Current page: Frédéric Brenner – ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES: 3 Sep 2021 to 24 Apr 2022
Publications
Frédéric Brenner: ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES: 2021, publication accompanying the exhibition
Accompanying Events
Hevrutah: Zerheilen – Healing to Pieces: Invitation to learn together
See also
Frédéric Brenner, photographer
Digital Content
Without the Leaves, I Would Not Have Started: Essay by Frédéric Brenner on ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES, 2021
Staging Jewishness: Video recording of the artist talk with Frédéric Brenner, 2022
ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES – The Subjects Pose with Their Portraits: Photos and interviews about Jewish life in Berlin, 2021/22
Hevrutah on Memory/Place: Video recording, with Yemima Hadad, Netanel Olhoeft, Dekel Peretz, and Barbara Steiner, 2021, in German with English subtitles
Hevrutah on Otherness/Responsibility: Video recording, with Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, Benyamin Reich, Irene Runge, and Adam Joachim Goldmann, 2021, in German with English subtitles
Hevrutah on Homeland/Diaspora: Video recording, with Akiva Weingarten, Sonia Simmenauer, Elad Lapidot, and Aviva Ronnefeld, 2022, in German with English subtitles

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