For the first time in Austria, a major retrospective will pay tribute to Erna Rosenstein (1913–2004), a key figure of the postwar avant-garde in Poland. Against the backdrop of the Shoah and historic upheavals in Poland, her works bear witness to the resilience of an artist, who never wavered in her political convictions and artistic ideals. In a career spanning six decades, Rosenstein developed a multimedia visual cosmos that reveals how the present interweaves with memories of the past, and how collective and individual experiences are intertwined.

Rosenstein’s abstract compositions resemble inner landscapes revealing echoes of Surrealism and dreamlike states. Her enigmatic, poetic titles unfurl surprising interpretative spaces and show how word and image are closely connected for the painter and poet. They reflect the experience of time and space, loss, grief, and historical events. At the same time, the assemblages brought together in Erna Rosenstein: On the Other Side of Silence demonstrate Rosenstein’s aim to transport seemingly worthless everyday objects into new narrative contexts through unexpected combinations.

Over more than six decades, Rosenstein created a multimedia pictorial cosmos as a powerful act of remembrance and resistance against forgetting. Based on her paintings, assemblages, and drawings, the latter shown for the first time outside of Poland, the exhibition invites critical engagement with the processing and preservation of personal and collective histories.

Curated by Stephanie Auer
Assistant Curator: Miroslav Haľák