SigiSmund’S Watch


a t i n y c ata S t r o p h e a power ful ear ly chi ldhood memory encapsulat ing the social and pol i t ical chaos of ear ly 1920s Germany is the inspi rat ion for an exhibi t ion of the work of ar t ist BaRBaRa LOFtuS at the Freud Museum


Galit Mana talks to the artist


Barbara Loftus’s mother Hildegard, who fled Germany in 1939, had been reluctant to recount her pre-war experiences but when, in 1994, her daughter told her that she wanted to record her memories, Hildegard was moved and supportive. These memories, which have a prominent social historical dimension, have become the core of Loftus’s artistic work. They are set against the context of the aftermath of WorldWar I, when the economic crisis and hyperinflation of theWeimar Republic created destabilisation, anxiety and fear that shook the fundaments of Jewish- German bourgeois life. Loftus describes Hildegard’s pivotal


experience of witnessing a bitter row between her parents concerning the bankruptcy of Hildegard’s father, Sigismund. This involved Hildegard’smother tearing Sigismund’s gold watch (a “masculine attribute of the businessman” and bourgeois status symbol) fromhis waistcoat pocket and stamping on it. Loftus explains this experience by use of the Freudian term ‘primal scene’; “a keymoment recollected fromearly childhood that had a great impact on the child’s understanding of the world”. This interpretation connects Loftus’s oeuvre to the FreudMuseum, as does the shared experience of Freud and Hildegard in coming to England as Jewish refugees. Loftus’s exhibition includes preparatory


studies, oil paintings and black and white silhouettes. The accompanying documentation highlights the social history of the period and includes contemporary photographs capturing Berlin life during the period of hyperinflation (among themthe famous photo of twomen and a boy, Pulping Bank Notes, 1923), and satirical illustrations fromthe 1920s periodical Simplicissimus. The exhibition also reveals unique


aspects of Loftus’s artistic process. Every painting begins with a live performance, filmed and photographed by the artist. Loftus employed professional actors to performHildegard’s life experiences, giving


themfreedomto interpret the scene, so that the performances represent a continuous dialogue between artist and actors. The artist then created preparatory studies which develop into a series of oil paintings. Discussing influences on her work,


Loftusmentioned filmdirectors such as Antonioni, Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, the work of theAmerican painter Edward Hopper and classical painters such as Caravaggio. I also sense in her work the


the space becomes a setting for incident . . . the defined space contains within it an identical volume of time . . . it is both frozen and flowing . . . I usemy enclosed spaces as a kind of theatre of incident. These incidents are often autobiographical fragments.” By focusing on reconstruction and


visualisation of familymemories and stories, Loftus “re-enacts, re-experiences and repossesses” themso the past becomes inseparable fromautobiography. She is thus passing familymemories on to the next generation by way of visual documentation. I asked if thesememories had a


influence of daVinci, particularly in her painting of parts of the human body, and a Surrealistic quality, though the only Surrealist artist Loftusmentions is Balthus, a Polish-French artist working on the fringes of the Surrealistmovement in the first half of the 20th century. Loftus studied at Harrow School ofArt


(1962-4) and then at Brighton College ofArt (1964-8). Her initial work was autobiographical, depicting unpopulated urban spaces with a certain psychological tension, evoking the artist’smemories of the austere post-war period of her own childhood. In 1996 Loftus described her perspective: “one of the chief preoccupations ofmy work as a figurative painter has been the interaction between images in narrative sequences.My images are involved with the texture of reality; they seek to define or entrap a finite piece of space. Once enclosed,


significant role in constructing her Jewish identity. Loftus emphasised that she was not brought up with a strong sense of being Jewish and does not feel she has a Jewish identity except for when she comes across antisemitism. “I was born in England after the war and grew up with little knowledge of mymother’s past and German identity; there were no relatives . . . I have anAnglo-Irish father who was born a Catholic and then rejected Catholicismand became a passionate communist.Mymother didn’t talk about the past because I thinkmy father didn’t want to hear it, it was difficult for him.” I wonder whether reconstructing her mother’smemories is not the artist’s way of dealing with her repressed Jewish roots and identity – another link to Freud.


the exhibition runs from 5 october to 13 november 2011. the artist will be interviewed by the curator, Monica Bohm- Duchen, at the Museum on 26 october. See What’s happening, page 25


above:ablack-and-white silhouette that shows Sigismund and his wife arguing, with some papers "flying above his head) Middle: BrokenWatch 1,2,3,4 (4 canvases), 2010 right, top to bottom: Snatch, oil on canvas, 2004 The Bridge Party, oil on canvas, 2010 Hildegard Under Table II, oil on canvas, 2010


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JeWiSh renaiSSance octoBer 2011


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