Fragments of a Crisis

Crises influence artistic production. This is impressively demonstrated by emergency currency banknotes; the widespread alternative currency during the infation of the Weimar Republic. The motifs on these bills attest to artistic work from across the nation.

Fragments of a Crisis takes on the graphics of Julian Irlinger's private "Notgeld" archive whose bills have not been destroyed by the money burnings following the hyperinfation of 1923. Without spoken commentary, the narrative potential of the artistic notes takes center stage as we listen to the crackle of burning paper.

The work is a journey through the political unconscious of the early Weimar period. The prints on the bills show fairy tale worlds, workers, German colonial history, former German territories, violence and the war. Their traditional and antiquated aesthetic embodies the flip side of the avant-garde in the progressive Weimar Republic.