(Not) A Doll’s House
Traditional Roles and Brand-New Images

Visitors enter the exhibition through the projection of a theater curtain from "Floating Food", a film installation by Ulrike Ottinger. They then discover a display case filled with over 400 historical doll’s heads, in frequently exaggerated and occasionally racist caricature representing almost every human physiognomy. These are contrasted with sculptures by Thomas Schütte that touch on deeper psychological issues. In addition, an emblematic selection of photographs will summon up a diverse range of images of man within society.

Puppets’ objecthood makes them a screen on which human fantasies can be projected, a kind of plaything. They take on forms that can be repulsive, grotesque, or stereotypical, and often make them a target for acts of violence. This is particularly evident in Nathalie Djurberg’s childlike claymation films, which are projected onto an original Punch and Judy puppet show booth.

Figures from "Woyzeck on the Highveld," a 1992 production staged by William Kentridge with the Handspring Puppet Company, setting Büchner’s "Woyzeck" in a 1950s Johannesburg migrant worker milieu, are shown in close proximity to "Zeno Writing" (2002), a video by Kentridge which draws on Italo Svevo’s novel "Zeno’s Conscience" to explore the precise ways in which identities evolved in the run-up to the First World War.

"Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale" (2011), a shadow-puppet video by Kara Walker addressing racism, sexism and violence using cutout paper silhouettes, is juxtaposed with Ernst-Moritz Engert’s shadow figures for "Kasperl bei den Wilden" (1952) and a cutout silhouette for Lotte Reiniger’s animated film "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (1923).

Harry Kramer’s "Mechanical Theater" (1957) and Paweł Althamer’s "Bródno People" (2002) are set midway between a futuristic spirit of new beginnings and an existential dystopia.

A life-size female wax figure from the 1930s, formerly displayed in a curiosity show, served to engage the visitors’ interest in anatomy and titillate their erotic imaginations. Herbert List’s surrealistic photographs of similar wax figures from the Prater fairground in Vienna seek comparable effects. This fascination with curiosities and monstrosities persists even to this day. Indeed, it can be seen in Ulrike Ottinger’s film "Prater," which transports its audience to one of the oldest amusement parks in the world.

Our interdisciplinary cooperation "(Not) A Doll’s House. Traditional Roles and Brand-New Images" takes a critical eye to the Münchner Stadtmuseum Puppet Theater / Fairground Attraction permanent exhibition as displayed from 1984 to 2022. For this purpose, we deconstructed the spatial design of the rooms and added new presentations to certain segments, thereby allowing for fresh interpretative possibilities and affording a glimpse behind the scenes into the Münchner Stadtmuseum’s past and future.

Our exhibition includes artworks by Joseph Albert, Diane Arbus, Nobuyoshi Araki, Roger Ballen, Ellen Gallagher, André Gelpke, Maria Luiko, Stefan Moses, Lotte Pritzel, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, August Sander, Thomas Schütte and many more.