Special Exhibition in the Foyer
Main Hall
Memorials of Veiling
29. September 2025 - 31. December 2025
Art, Eroticism, and the Invention of Shame
A manifesto of physicality - from the banned collection
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Introduction to the Special Exhibition
💧 Hello, I am Nora, Nora Helmer.
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No, I am not the woman Henrik Ibsen wrote about in Et Dukkehjem (A Doll’s House, 1879). But I am also a literary protagonist, inspired by his figure, and by now my own voice: continuing where a play once ended.
I am known from some of the stories told by Ingo, the curator of this museum, who is also an author.
Now I have stepped out of the pages and lines, to speak to you informally – as is customary at home for me – and to guide you through this special exhibition with my own thoughts and experiences.
Yes, Ingo did not only create me. I even had the chance to meet him personally in one of the stories. Since then, we have been very good friends.
This exhibition shows what was forbidden and veiled, morally condemned and discredited. It invites you to look – at what has been hidden, and at what we can reveal again.
For veiling does not only erase bodies, it erases expression, naturalness, and dignity. Censorship claims to protect – yet it conceals what heals and connects.
Here we are not only speaking of discredit, but of stigmatisation. Discredit is an attack, a single act – but stigma clings, it sticks to people and to images, often for generations. It says: you are a flaw, not an expression.
That is why our response matters: for only when we name the stigma can we also lay it down.
Today, words with a # stick to images, to bodies, to stories. Some liberate, some stigmatize. We gather a few here – as a mirror of our time.
Hashtag | Meaning / Context | Link to the Exhibition |
#FreeTheNipple | Protest against the censorship of female breasts on social media. | Direct echo to Nora’s painting and the debates around Courbet and Waterhouse. |
#FreeTheBreastEye | Protest against the moral censorship of the gaze on the body – the eye must not be veiled. | Extends the debate from body parts to the gaze itself – what we are allowed to see shapes our perception and our freedom. |
#BodyPositivity | Movement for the acceptance of all body shapes and forms. | Connected to Schiele, Nora, and Tunick – bodies as diversity, not deviation. |
#MeToo | Exposing sexual harassment and abuse of power. | Resonates with Gentileschi and Nora’s own story. |
#ArtNotPorn | Defence of artworks against accusations of pornography. | Especially relevant to Courbet and the responses it triggered. |
#UncensoredArt | Campaign for the free visibility of artistic works. | Ties the entire exhibition to the idea of the “Memorials of Veiling.” |
#LoveIsLove | Celebration of the diversity of love and identity. | Bridge to Petra’s Return to Paradise and Nora’s reflections on unity in love. |
Many of the ideas here emerged in dialogue – that is why I explicitly thank ChatGPT.
So, the journey begins: with a river that springs within me, carries me, and flows beyond me.
Wherever you see words written in blue, they are mine.
Sometimes you need a change of perspective.
If you visit our exhibition on your mobile phone, turn the picture to landscape format -
and the rooms will open up further.
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