Three trapezoidal black-glass sculptures

Gallery of the Missing

An Installation by Via Lewandowsky in the Eric F. Ross Gallery

For the Gallery of the Missing, the artist Via Lewandowsky developed three opaque showcases titled Order of Disappearance. As visitors draw near to these trapezoidal sculptures, they hear audio recordings on special headphones that describe obliterated objects in German and English.

The sound pieces are about objects that serve as examples of the larger destruction of Jewish cultural property. According to the artist, they are meant to remind visitors of the existence and nature of “what no longer exists.”

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

The sound pieces each contain an auditory description of a missing artifact from the arts, academia, or society:

Otto Freundlich’s sculpture Large Head ("The New Man"), presumed to have been destroyed
The Encyclopedia Judaica, which was never finished beyond the letter K
The head of the goddess Hygieia as the final relic of the Jewish Community Hospital of Frankfurt

The project channels Daniel Libeskind’s architecture. The Voids Libeskind inscribed into the building embody the unspeakable loss that Berlin and Germany sustained with the murder of Jews.

Who is Via Lewandowsky?

Via Lewandowsky, *1963 in Dresden, artist, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden; his installation Gallery of the Missing has been on display at the JMB since 2001

Who is Daniel Libeskind?

Daniel Libeskind, *1946 in Łódź, emigrated to Israel in 1957, moved to the USA in 1960, architect of the Jewish Museum Berlin

Photos of the Gallery of the Missing

(7 items)

The three trapezoidal black-glass sculptures which form the Gallery of the Missing have a footprint of approximately 2 square meters and are 2 meters high. They mimic the architecture of the Voided Voids (the Holocaust Tower) at the end of the Axis of the Holocaust; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Roman März
The Gallery of the Missing in the Eric F. Ross Gallery on the ground level of the Libeskind Building; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Roman März
The exhibition space is reflected in the smooth surface of the sculpture Gallery of the Missing; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
Installation Gallery of the Missing with visitors; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Sönke Tollkühn
The glass sculptures use infrared transmitters to send signals. Visitors can receive them with special headphones; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Thomas Bruns
The mundane inner workings are of course hidden from view; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
Via Lewandowsky while making recordings for the installation in 2001; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Hans Grunert