Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Sigrid Hackenberg’s Ich Heiße (My Name Is) Rosa Luxemburg on the fifth floor of 535 West 22nd Street From February 20 through March 17, 2001.
The multiple channel video and sound installation, Ich Heiße (My Name Is) Rosa Luxemburg, depicts four life size video images of Rosa Luxemburg. In addition, archival film footage from World War 1 and the November revolution 1918/Spartacus Uprising 1919 (Berlin) accompany the figures. Sigrid Hackenberg performs Rosa Luxemburg and is dressed in the costume of the time period. Digitally altered excerpts from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony accompany the images. Sound design for the Fifth Symphony by Sigrid Hackenberg. A second sound track spoken by Dolores Hackenberg presents excerpts from Luxemburg’s opening speech Unser Programm und die politische Situation (Draft Program of the Communist Party of Germany, 1918). Sound design for Unser Programm und die politische Situation by Johannes Schneider.
Sigrid Hackenberg is a Spanish-German artist who lives and works in New York. She has produced a series of multiple channel installations and feature length tapes which have been recorded in Europe, Asia and the United States. Hackenberg was born in Barcelona, Spain and grew up in Germany, Canada and Japan. She received a B.A. from San Francisco State University and an M.A. from New York University. She teaches video art at New York University
Dolores Hackenberg is a Spanish-German artist who lives and works in Ingelheim, Germany.
Johannes Schneider is a Swiss artist who lives and works in Mainz, Germany.
CREDITS:
Sigrid Hackenberg performs Rosa Luxemburg
WWI archival film footage courtesy Archive Films, Inc., New York
November Revolution 1918/Spartacus Uprising 1919, Berlin, archival film footage courtesy Bundesarchiv/ Transit Film GMBH, Berlin-Munich
Including digitally altered excerpts from Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No.5 in C minor, op.67 Sound design by Sigrid Hackenberg
Including excerpts from Unser Programm und die politische Situation opening speech presented at the founding of the KPD, Berlin, December 31, 1918
Rosa Luxemburg's voice by Dolores Hackenberg
Sound design for Unser Programm und die politische Situation by Johannes Schneider
Background and History:
Rosa Luxemburg is an important revolutionary figure of the 20th Century. Luxemburg was born in 1870-71(?), in the small town of Zamosc, in Russian Poland to Jewish parents. From a young age, she developed strong political aspirations. When Luxemburg completed her Gymnasium studies, she fled Warsaw and arrived in Zurich at a time when the city afforded sanctuary to numerous Russian, Polish, Austrian and German émigrés. In Zurich, Luxemburg met Leo Jogiches (1867-1919), her colleague and lover to be. Together they founded the SDKP Party (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland) in 1893, that later became the SDKPiL. On completing her PhD at the University of Zurich in 1898, Luxemburg engaged in a marriage of convenience to a German citizen. This marriage allowed her to move to Berlin where she joined the most powerful social democratic party in Europe: the SPD (German Social Democratic Party). During her life, Luxemburg wrote numerous political articles and theoretical texts that were Marxist in orientation. She was an internationalist, a brilliant orator and fluent in Polish, Russian, German, French and English. She was an active member of the Second International. She served prison sentences in Poland and Germany due to her political beliefs and strong anti-WW1 polemics.
The name Luxemburg is synonymous with courage, sacrifice and revolution. When the SPD began to veer to the right, Luxemburg refused to engage in any political compromises. Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) were founding members of the Spartacus League and the German Communist Party (KPD). Luxemburg was assassinated in Berlin by counter revolutionary troops. While in military custody on January 15, 1919 she was arrested without a warrant, mistreated, shot in the head, and her body disposed of in Berlin’s Landwehr Canal. Her body was not recovered until late May and appeared severely disfigured. Karl Liebknecht was assassinated the same day as Luxemburg. A few months later Jogiches was assassinated. While in police custody he was severely beaten and shot in the back.