Reproduktion / Reproduction

Who is allowed to make what kind of art? And what is depicted in art? When Katharina Pethke entered the Hamburg University of Fine Arts as a young student, she felt like she had found her own path. But her mother and grandmother had already studied in the building, amid walls still decorated with oversized representations of male genius. The only sculpture by a female artist, purchased by city planner and architect Fritz Schumacher and titled “Frauenschicksal” (Woman's Fate), depicts a selfless, loving mother. This ambivalence is reproduced in Pethke's family biography as well. In her dense essay film, Katharina Pethke, who returned to the school as a professor, sheds light on class and gender relations across three generations. Touching on the compatibility of art and caregiving work, social determination, and independence, the film is an architectural and art-historical journey through the university's history as an institution and a building.