From 21 October 2022, the Jewish Museum Berlin (JMB) will be showing the exhibition Inside out – Etgar Keret. Based on memories of his mother, the Israeli author Keret has written nine short stories especially for the exhibition, which are now being presented to the public for the first time.
Fig. above: My mother, Poland, ca. 1937; Etgar Keret
With these short stories, Keret explicitly takes up the Jewish tradition of passing on memories from generation to generation. He tells of shared experiences with his mother, who was born in Poland in 1934, and relays stories she told him as a child – everyday stories as well as traumatic war experiences and experiences of violence. Keret repeatedly switches between the perspective of the adult narrator and that of the child. With his literary texts, he makes no claim to depicting a reality or conveying a complete picture of his mother; on the contrary, he emphasises that such an attempt is doomed to failure, and he wants to show the uncertain and fragmentary nature of his memory in the exhibition as well.
The short stories are presented with objects selected by Etgar Keret from the JMB collection as well as two installations, a video work and illustrations created in cooperation between Etgar Keret and contemporary artists. With his exhibition, Etgar Keret wants to break the expectations of museum visitors: He does not want to impart knowledge or explain anything to them, but rather share with them the per se incomplete and unverifiable memories of his deceased mother. In the interplay of memories, objects and artistic installations, the exhibition opens up spaces for associations and feelings.
All the stories are available in the exhibition – and on the JMB website from the start of the exhibition – in three languages in printed form and as audios. Etgar Keret himself has recorded his texts in Hebrew and English, the multi-award-winning writer Daniel Kehlmann the German translation. Kehlmann, who is a friend of Keret, will also take part in the programme accompanying the exhibition: On 29 November 2022, the JMB invites you to a conversation between the two, including a reading. Etgar Keret and his wife Shira Geffen will already be present on 27 November 2022 at the screening of the miniseries My Talking Goldfish (The Middleman, 2019), which they wrote and directed together. Two writing workshops with a guided tour of the exhibition and lunch on 20 November and 12 December round off the accompanying programme.
WHERE?
Jüdisches Museum Berlin
Lindenstraße 9–14
10969 Berlin
WHEN?
Friday, 21. October 2022 until Sunday, 5. February 2023
 will be showing the exhibition Inside out - Etgar Keret. Based on memories of his. ...){kind=link}