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From 7 May to 30 August 2026, the Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz are showing the exhibition Traces of Proximity. Käthe Kollwitz and contemporary photography. The focus is on the dialogue between the work of Käthe Kollwitz and current artistic positions, which impressively demonstrates the continuing relevance of her themes.

The starting point for the exhibition is the museum's own extensive collection, from which a comprehensive presentation of the artist's work is being created for the first time in almost four decades. On display are drawings as well as etchings, lithographs and woodcuts from the years 1892 to 1938, with central groups of works such as A Weavers' Revolt, Peasants' War and War alongside self-portraits, portraits of workers and depictions of mothers and children. The exhibition also includes works on loss and death as well as social and political motifs and posters. The presentation is complemented by reliefs and sculptures from the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin.

The exhibition is being organised in cooperation with Heidi Specker's photography class at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. The students have intensively analysed Kollwitz' visual world and developed their own artistic works from it. Photographs, graphics and sculptural and film installations take up central themes such as self-expression, the body, motherhood, war, violence and protest and translate them into the present.
the present.

Käthe Kollwitz is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Her work is characterised by a haunting, unmistakable visual language and a deep interest in people. Against a backdrop of personal loss and historical upheaval, she explored existential experiences, social inequality and human vulnerability.
Born in Königsberg in 1867 and influenced by a liberal family, Kollwitz developed her artistic expressiveness at an early age. Her life was closely linked to the political and social changes in Germany, from the German Empire to the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist era. She left Berlin in 1943 and died in Moritzburg near Dresden in 1945.

>>> events accompanying the exhibition