Tage und Nächte

Artists

Emma Jung, Rebecca Ackroyd

Press release

This extraordinary exhibition at Cabaret Voltaire brings the previously largely unknown cosmos of Emma Jung (1882–1955) into dialogue with contemporary artist Rebecca Ackroyd (*1987). For the first time, Emma Jung's records from her analytic practice, including drawings, paintings, poems, and notes, are being presented to the public. Emma Jung, a skilled analyst and close collaborator and interlocutor of her husband C.G. Jung, significantly influenced the exploration of the human psyche – even though she often worked in the background of the famous Swiss psychiatrist. Her work particularly focuses on the concept of individuation, referring to the process by which a person recognizes and develops themselves as an individual. Central to this are the dynamics of Animus and Anima, the symbolism of the Grail legend as a metaphor for the inner spiritual journey, and the quest for wholeness. As a result, dualities such as culture and nature, good and evil, or gender identities are dissolved.

Rebecca Ackroyd's œuvre features numerous parallels with Emma Jung. Her drawings give shape to the unconscious and, similarly to Jung, reflect the psychological and spiritual dimension of art and the process of 'world-becoming'. Ackroyd's installations are often dreamlike and depict the fragmentation of memory and time. Through a diverse visual language comprising; large-format paintings, drawings, sculptures, and objects, a world of desire and repulsion, wishes and fears, as well as the familiar and the uncanny merge into a captivating
whole. For this exhibition, she is developing a new series of drawings, conceived as intimate expressions of symbolic orders, consciously smaller in scale, inviting a closer encounter with the inner world of making.

The exhibition at Cabaret Voltaire – the birthplace of Dada – also highlights the connections between Emma Jung, Analytical Psychology, and the Dada art movement. In 1916, Emma Jung, then the first president of the Psychological Club, attended at least one Dada soirée. That year, she created impressive visual metamorphoses that dealt with processes of individuation. Artists such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Hans Arp engaged with Jungian approaches, particularly in their search for typologies and universal forms. The analytic concept of individuation can be compared to the Dadaist breaking of conventions. Analytical psychologists, in turn, explore the therapeutic effects of abstract mandalas. Both Dada and Analytical Psychology were deeply concerned with the unconscious. Utilizing theories of Analytical Psychology, Dadaists grappled with the societal upheavals of the early 20th century, such as the mechanization of life and the traumas of World War I. Richard Huelsenbeck later noted a therapeutic quality in the works of many Dadaists.

Emma Jung was a Swiss analyst and author. She gained recognition as the wife and close collaborator of psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, but her own contributions to Analytical Psychology deserve acknowledgment. Emma Jung came from a wealthy and influential family. Her father, Johannes Rauschenbach-Schenk, was a successful industrialist and co-owner of the Rauschenbach machinery factory. Thanks to her privileged background, she received an excellent education, which sparked her interest in literature, philosophy, and psychology. In 1903, she married Carl Gustav Jung, with whom she had five children. She was not only deeply involved in her husband's work but also developed into an independent analyst over the years. Notably, her research on Grail symbolism, published posthumously in 1960, and her studies on the dynamics of Animus and Anima stand out as significant contributions.

Rebecca Ackroyd, born in 1987 in Cheltenham, Great Britain, lives and works between Berlin and London. She completed her Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and her BA at the Byam Shaw School of Art, London. Her recent solo exhibitions include Mirror Stage at the Venice Biennale (2024), organized by Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover; Period Drama at the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover (2023–2024); Shutter Speed at Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon (2023–2024). Her works have also been part of numerous group exhibitions, including Antéfutur at Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (2023); Dark Light: Realism in the Age of Post-Truth at the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2022); Masters and Servants at Ygrec Gallery, École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris Cergy, Paris (2022); corpus murmur at Peles Empire, Berlin (2022); Act 1: Body en Thrall at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, UK (2022); and Singed Lids for the 15th Lyon Biennale, organized by the Palais de Tokyo (2019).