In the summer of 2025, KUNSTHALLE GIESSEN is dedicating the exhibition (In)Visibility of Violence, to the question of how art confronts violence. This multi-genre group exhibition brings together international positions that make various forms and mechanisms of violence tangible, document them, or pose critical reflections of them. Acts of war—omnipresent in the media and seemingly endless—shape our visual habits and dominate public perception. In addition to visibly manifest violence, such as the brutal destruction of buildings and cultural heritage, the sight of civilian victims, or images of displaced persons and refugees, the exhibition particularly focuses on the often invisible dimensions of violence. Structural, psychological, or gender-based violence, especially against women and minorities, as well as the resulting traumas and emotional suffering, often remain hidden. Ideological and religious hatred, passed down through generations and disproportionately affecting women, is often unseen or deliberately repressed. Shame and societal stigmatization often protect the perpetrators, while the consequences for those affected are profound and long-lasting.
(In)Visibility of Violence seeks to explore these unequal power structures and the visual regimes that shape the perception of violence: What societal, political, and media mechanisms make violence visible or invisible? How is violence documented, instrumentalized, or censored? What creative and artistic approaches can render violence perceptible? How do artists employ strategies such as alienation, censorship, documentation, or spectacularization to depict or obscure violence?
The exhibition brings together works by contemporary international artists who explore violence in its many forms, represent and document it in multimedia formats: from psychological and physical trauma to structural and institutionalized violence, to its aestheticization and mediation through media. Starting from themes such as trauma and psychological violence, (sexual) violence against women*, violence against minorities, and the (political) instrumentalization of violence, the exhibition unfolds a network of injustice and resistance that reveals how closely these forms of violence can be interwoven.
(In)Visibility of Violence consciously zooms in on existing works of art. Through these works it becomes apparent that conflict zones which already came into focus in media and artistic discourses in the early 2000s not only still exist, but in many cases have aggravated to this day. The exhibition shows how oppression, abuse of power, and other forms of violence draw on historical patterns and continually take on new forms. These developments are often reinforced by social, technological, and political changes. The exhibition invites viewers to consider violence not merely as a time- and place-bound phenomenon, but as a recurring narrative deeply rooted in global power structures that have existed from the colonial era to the present.
As such (In)Visibility of Violence is an invitation to reflect on the mechanisms of violence in our society, to consider not only on what is shown, but also on what remains hidden. It calls on us not to consume violence as spectacle or, in the face of global events and media overload, fall into desensitization, but rather to actively engage with the power structures and (in)justice systems that enable it. A curated film program accompanies the exhibition and deepens its thematic areas.
The is a collaboration with the Research Center „Transformations of Political Violence“ (TraCe), which began in 2024 with the dialogue panel “Depictions of Excessive Use of Force – Between Disturbance and Attraction” at the Kunsthalle. A journal will be published alongside the exhibition, jointly produced by KUNSTHALLE GIESSEN and researchers from the TraCe research center.
