The Kai Dikhas Foundation presents new acquisitions and other works from its collection, which now comprises more than 120 works by artists who are Sinti or Roma. At the centre of the exhibition is a work by the artist Luna De Rosa “Cosa vuol dire essere Romnia ?!” “What does it mean to be Romnia?!” And it is the diverse life stories of the artists* that find expression in art. Opposite this artwork the exhibition presents paintings by Holocaust survivor and artist Ceija Stojka, who was a pioneer of Roma art. She too was initially confronted with this question, but then unfolded an artistically unique cosmos of her memories of the time of her deportation, her imprisonment and the childhood before National Socialism that was buried underneath and ultimately destroyed. With these pictures, she was able to emancipate herself from the role of victim. For the first time, works by the artist painted with phosphorescent paint are shown in the exhibition. Sublimely, the artist gives the toxicity of the permanently present memories of the horrors of the experience subliminally a new colour.
Also shown are works by the artists Alfred Ullrich, Henrik Kállai, Manolo Gómez Romero, Valérie Leray, but also historical engravings by the French engraver Jaques Callot, whose series “Les Bohémiens en marche” (1621-25) shown here are among the earliest disseminated images of the minority, with which the sinister effect of depictions of Roma by Non-Roma and the subsequently created stereotypes began, which ultimately led to exclusion and persecution that continues to this day. These almost exactly four hundred-year-old prints were the inspiration for Malgorzata Mirga Tas’ work for the Polish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Art Biennale, “Milk of Dreams”. In the exhibition “Kai Dikhas Collection 2022”, the artists presented once again counter these historical images of others with a powerful self-image.
