Maria Jarema

Maria Jarema (1908–1958) was a woman of many talents: A sculptor and painter, she experimented with printmaking techniques, designed costumes and stage sets for dance and theater, and was a practicing actress. She published on art, campaigned for women’s right to reproductive and creative self-determination, and authored manifestos against the class society.

Krakow was the center of her life. There, in 1932, she co-founded the Krakow Group (Grupa Krakowska) with fellow students in protest against the nationalist tendencies at the local art academy. The group, which was closely associated with the then prohibited Communist Party of Poland (KPP), became an important context for the artistic generation of the interwar and immediate postwar periods. It was also in Krakow where Jarema stayed during World War II and the occupation through Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945, a period that was life-threatening for Jarema and her communist, anti-Stalinist artistic circle.

Jarema remains ever-present in her chosen home of Krakow: two of her public monuments were realized there; a street bears her name; one of her abstract paintings, magnified a hundredfold, adorns the facade of an apartment building; artists of younger generations have paid her public tribute.
Jarema's artistic work is characterized by a distinctive formal language that demonstrates both her close familiarity with the history of art as well as its most current developments. During visits to Paris in 1938 and 1948, she encountered Surrealism, a movement whose convictions she shared: For Jarema, art was not a political tool, but a revolutionary practice capable of transforming thought and changing society for the better.
Her life was closely involved with the theater: Together with her brother, the artist Józef Jarema, she was active in the experimental theater group Cricot who performed their plays in union buildings and improvised art spaces around Krakow. In the 1950s, she co-founded the successor group Cricot 2 with artist Jonasz Stern and Tadeusz Kantor.
Jarema's interest in thinking spoken word and rhythm, movement, and bodily expression in the forms of sculpture and painting and vice versa stemmed from this long-standing experience in theater. Her characteristically abstract way of thinking is echoed in the titles of her works: entire series are titled "Rhythm", "Sign", "Penetration", or "Filter". Jarema described the encounter between two forms as an anecdote, and the picture plane as a site of confrontation with consequences for the outside world.

With this monographic exhibition at the Lenbachhaus, the work of one of the most important female artists of Polish modernism is being honored in Germany for the first time. On display are works from all periods of her career, including numerous paintings, monotypes, sculptures, and costumes.

In cooperation with Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie (Museum of Modern Art Warsaw). Original curatorial concept "Maria Jarema: Cracked Modernism" by Éric de Chassey and Natalia Sielewicz. Curated for Lenbachhaus by Stephanie Weber.

The exhibition is supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.

With generous support of Förderverein Lenbachhaus e.V.