Erna Rosenstein: On the Other Side of Silence – A Retrospective of Polish Avant-Garde Art at Belvedere.

This major retrospective honors Erna Rosenstein (1913–2004), a pivotal figure in Polish postwar avant-garde art. The exhibition explores her multimedia visual cosmos, which interweaves the present with memories of the past, addressing collective and individual experiences, particularly in the context of the Shoah and Polish history.

For the first time in Austria, this exhibition presents a comprehensive retrospective of Erna Rosenstein (1913–2004), a central figure of the postwar avant-garde in Poland. Facing the Shoah and significant historical upheavals in Poland, Rosenstein's art stands as a testament to her unwavering political convictions and artistic integrity. Over a career spanning six decades, she developed a unique multimedia visual language that masterfully blurs the lines between the present and the past, exploring the intricate connections between collective and individual experiences. The exhibition delves into her expressive pictorial language, developed to articulate the unspeakable aspects of trauma, and her lifelong engagement with the murder of her parents as a recurring motif. Despite her work increasingly characterized by biomorphic abstraction from the 1950s onwards, Rosenstein consistently adhered to figuration in her portraits, conveying a deep sense of personal connection. Rosenstein’s abstract compositions evoke inner landscapes, hinting at Surrealism and dreamlike states, often accompanied by enigmatic, poetic titles that open surprising interpretative spaces and highlight the close relationship between word and image in her practice. These titles reflect profound experiences of time, space, loss, grief, and historical events. Furthermore, the exhibition showcases her assemblages, where seemingly insignificant everyday objects are transformed into new narrative contexts through unexpected combinations. Collectively, Rosenstein’s paintings, assemblages, and drawings—the latter exhibited outside Poland for the first time—create a powerful multimedia cosmos, serving as a profound act of remembrance and resistance against forgetting, inviting critical reflection on the preservation of personal and collective histories.

Information about tickets is available via a link to the Belvedere's ticketing page. The exhibition is located at Lower Belvedere, and general opening hours are Monday to Sunday, 10 am - 6 pm. Visitors are directed to purchase time slot tickets online for convenience.