Charlotte Salomon’s “Life? Or Theater?”. A Sequence of Pictures as Score
An artistic research project
Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) created a sequence of 1325 gouaches in which she reflected on her own life against the background of events in Germany during the 1930s and 40s. The picture sequence "Life? Or Theater?" is today considered a striking (ego) document which artistically addresses several women's lives in relation to their contemporary histories. The pictures are regularly exhibited, and both they and the life story of their maker continue to inspire artistic reshaping in films, novels, operas, and other formats.
But until now it has mostly been overlooked that Salomon called her picture cycle Singespiel. And fact is that the sequence of pictures has a strong musical reference of its own. Music has an essential meaning for "Life? Or Theater?"—as a trigger for memory, and especially for singing as a form of expression. In keeping with the significance of singing, Salomon provided her work with a genre name that explicitly refers to music theater while also going beyond the music-theatrical genre, Singespiel. But what is a Singespiel? And (how) can it be performed?
Draft © Melanie Unseld
Staff involved in the project
Rumen Dimitrov, Nadja Kayali, Johannes Kretz, Elisabeth Reda (Oldenburg/Germany), Roman Tronner, Melanie Unseld, Martin Vácha. Art historical consulting: Evelyn Benesch