About

• History and collective memory play a central role in Julian Irlinger's work. He investigates themes of ownership, expropriation, and restitution in search for answers about national and cultural identity.
• Through his in-depth study of archival materials and artefacts, Irlinger creates a universe of ready-mades, that highlight socio-political issues of the past and present. Drilling into generalized narratives, his work exposes particular fates and circumstances that reveal what is often repressed and left unsaid.
• Whether it's sharing an exhibition space with the temporarily relocated social welfare office of Wedding (DE) or gifting the results of his extensive research around a restituted house in Schönebeck an der Elbe (DE) to the Wende Museum in Los Angeles (USA), Irlinger continuously devises new and surprising strategies to bundle up and present his deep research.
• In Moving Narratives, Irlinger presents a group of pigment prints of enlarged details from German emergency currencies. Collectively referred to as Notgeld, these currencies were designed by local artists and issued by municipalities and private corporations in the 1920s to combat hyperinflation.
• Irlinger is drawn to the phenomenon of Notgeld, not just for its pictorial splendor and collectability, but also for its revelation about underlying social contracts and the wider political unconscious. Appearing and disappearing again by the expiration dates printed on the recto, these emergency bills are designed to overcome both social and political emergencies, while at the same time, acting as embodiments and reminders of one of the worst challenging chapters in German history.