El Lissitzky: The Constructor, 1924 - The self-portrait as a construction of the new: see - recognize - act

Despite its small format (19.5 x 19 cm), the artist's self-portrait is one of Lissitzky's major works, insofar as - in a life-threatening situation - he develops a complex symbol of his artistic self-image. The montage of superimposed photographs in the union of head, eye, and hand points to his intention of a connection between artistic conceptualization and active implementation. As part of the avant-garde of the 1920s, he seeks to incorporate current media and processes in art and culture (photo, montage, photogram, light and typography) and use them to shape unfamiliar concepts of time and space - as part of a utopia of a new society.

Lissitzky's stay in Hanover in 1923/24, mediated by Kurt Schwitters, with an exhibition and the realization of the two Kestner folders, gave the Kestner-Gesellschaft, founded during World War I, important impulses for an exhibition activity that wanted to show novel tendencies in art and society as points of orientation. Lissitzky understood his art as a decided form of internationality, to promote the exchange of art movements between all parts of Europe. These aspects are just as relevant today - beyond Europe - and can also shape the self-image of the Kestner-Gesellschaft. The current artistic practice of the Kestner-Gesellschaft would like to be measured against this standard when the subtitle of the Lissitzky exhibition reads: "El Lissitzky: The Self-Portrait of the Kestner-Gesellschaft".

Peter Rautmann studied German and art history at the University of Mainz 1961/62, art education and painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Kassel 1962 - 1966, art history, archaeology and philosophy at the University of Hamburg from 1966 - 1976 with a doctorate on Caspar David Friedrich.
From 1979 to 2007 Professor of Theory and History of Aesthetic Practice/Science of Arts at the Bremen University of the Arts, where he was Vice-Rector from 2000 to 2002, and following that Rector of the Bremen University of the Arts until 2007; retirement in May 2007. Until 2012 artistic director of the interdisciplinary institute syn (art - music - design - science) at the HfK Bremen.

Since 2013 curatorial work on exhibitions and cultural projects at the Markuskirche/ Kulturkirche Hannover.
Numerous publications on German and European early Romanticism (C. D. Friedrich, E. Delacroix) and on 20th and 21st century modern art ("Passagen. Kreuz- und Quergänge durch die Moderne", ConBrio, Regensburg 1998), philosophy (Walter Benjamin), and on the relationship between art and music (Schönberg, Kandinsky, John Cage).