IM LICHT DER LETZTEN HOFFNUNG
(“In the Light of the Last Stance – Memory Carries Peace”)
Erinnerung trägt den Frieden
Marguerite Blume-Cárdenas ° Christopher Blazer ° Wiebke Conrad
02nd May – 26th June 2026
Vernissage: Sa, 02nd May 6-10pm
The exhibition will open with a speech by the laudator Andreas Wessel. This will be followed by a concert by Gina Pietsch.
The exhibition, „Im Licht der letzten Haltung – Erinnerung trägt den Frieden“ is a reflection on what remains when everything else recedes. It asks about those moments in which certainties begin to waver and stance emerges as the last visible form of resistance.
What remains when structures collapse?
When political orders end or inner certainties begin to falter?
In the light of the last stance, that moment appears in which nothing secure remains—except for what we uphold within ourselves.
This exhibition is not merely a group show. It spans over 80 years of lived stance.
Three generations—born in 1942, 1963, and 1992—enter into an open dialogue. Their works in sandstone, gouache, ink, acrylic, charcoal, and graphite reveal how differently peace, memory, and inner resilience can be understood—and at the same time, how closely these questions remain intertwined.
May 8, 1945 marks the end of the Second World War—a historical turning point that signified liberation while also establishing a new responsibility. Yet the end of a system does not automatically bring peace. History persists. In bodies, in families, in narratives—in what is passed on unspoken and cannot be resolved across generations.
What has been passed down?
What have we inherited—consciously or unconsciously?
Which inner landscapes have grown from this?
Between collapse and reorientation, between vulnerability and resilience, images and sculptures emerge that make the state of in-between tangible. When bombed earth gives rise to life again over time, this too becomes an image of human resilience. From destruction, something new emerges—yet this new is never detached from what came before.
Memory is not a nostalgic glance backward, but a foundation. Perhaps even a prerequisite for peace—for understanding, and for a conscious, embodied awareness of what has been and what may become.
Three artists—three generations.
Their works resist fixed meanings and open a space in which stance becomes visible.
What becomes apparent in this intergenerational context is a shift in artistic language—not as a linear development, but as a change in tone. In the works of Marguerite Blume-Cárdenas, experience manifests directly within the material. Stone remains stone. The form is clear, the gesture decisive. Nothing is softened. The sculptures carry the weight of what has been lived—what has been seen, what has been passed on. Here, stance is physical. Presence means endurance. Moving two decades forward, one encounters in Christopher Balzer a different form of condensation. The concrete dissolves into structure, into rhythm, into line. History appears not as documented memory, but as a lingering tension. His drawings oscillate between figure and sign—they sound an alarm without explaining. In the works of Wiebke Conrad, the focus ultimately shifts into the innermost space of the body. Proximity, vulnerability, and touch replace monumental gesture. Fragility becomes visible—not as weakness, but as potential. Here, peace appears not as a political event, but as an interpersonal condition. What emerges is not a “softer” narrative, but a shift from the external event to the inner realm.