Christa Jeitner

Notizen. Prozesse. Werke

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The art of Christa Jeitner (b. Blumberg, 1935; lives and works in Blumberg) speaks to the yearning for freedom. In textile assemblages, thread drawings, stringed pieces, and performances, the artist charts a complex response to the history of her time, from socialist East Germany and the years after the fall of the Wall to the present. Her works limn unexpected perspectives on the history of German-German relations and the countless small liberties a politically minded artist was able to carve out. In the 1960s, Jeitner develops her thread drawing technique, an expressive form of abstraction that breaks new ground, often in direct dialogue with radical formal innovations in lyric poetry such as Ingeborg Bachmann’s work. Of unerring precision, her art still captures an awareness of life that we would describe as precarious, as vulnerable and uncertainly situated—between events, between the ideological, ethical, and aesthetic frontlines of the period.

The book presents a comprehensive study of Jeitner’s oeuvre, which now spans over six decades, with numerous illustrations and notes by the artist herself. The contributions by Susanne Altmann, Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, and Christoph Tannert are rounded out by a conversation between Hannelore Sachs and the artist.