You can also express yourself very differently than through language.

With gestures.

Or graphics.

The American Christine Sun Kim, born in 1980, who lives in Berlin, signs the reason for her six large graphics of the “Degrees Of My Deaf Rage” on the occasion of the opening of “Crip Time”. “Deaf Rage”, she explains, is a household name .

To express the frustrations and anger of the deaf towards a world in which they are repeatedly exposed to obstacles, thoughtlessness or just plain cheek.

Eva-Maria Magel

Head of culture editor Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Kim has translated the degrees and intensities of her “Deaf Rage” into graphic symbols.

One of Kim's six images of anger is from the art world.

Who, in contrast to hearing artists, “offers” her to offset her fee against that of the sign language interpreter, in other words: to pay her less than her hearing colleague.

No wonder that Crip, abbreviated from the English “Cripple”, is now used as an activist term with a positive connotation.

And the reference to the "Krip Hop" by Leroy F. Moore jr.

should not be missing, who is represented with his video work.

The Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt approaches things very differently.

With the basic question, differently about body, fragility, life energy and, hence the title of the exhibition, to reflect on different experiences of time depending on physical and mental constitution, the house begins with itself Insights into stairs are anything but barrier-free.

Made a virtue out of necessity

This is why there are new guidance systems, aids, a text in simple language, benches by Shannon Finnegan - and installations like that by Chloe Pascal Crawford, who made a virtue out of the necessity that many less mobile visitors can hardly enter the cabinets , with a funny mirror work. In general, quite a few works were specially created, even at the entrance Kim's large wall installation “Echo Trap” invites you to try out the gestures for “Echo”, and not only children will want to stroke Emilie Louise Gossiaux's double guide dog “Dancing With London”.

Gerhard Richter's “Tante Marianne”, on the other hand, is contextualized in a room with works that deal with the killing of disabled people under National Socialism and with the systematic disadvantage of population groups and continents in medical care.

For “Crip Time”, the entire museum on Braubachstrasse has been cleared for art that, sometimes more and sometimes less obviously, deals with impairments.

A gloomy panorama of suffering or an activist well-intentioned and a little too colorful combination, as one might think, did not turn out to be.

And whether and where which artist, which artist himself, physically, mentally, lives or lived with a handicap, is also not superficially emphasized.

Vulnerability as part of life

Paintings like that of Dietrich Orth, who as a schizophrenic has processed various phases of his life and experiences in large-format pictures and text collages, or a video work by Liza Sylvestre, who began to lose her hearing as a child and brings the viewer closer to what she, in contrast to them, can hear, thematize disabilities or illnesses, also in autobiographical reference. But almost all of the works shown go beyond that.

Which fits with the intention of the show, which is about understanding vulnerability as a common basic human condition. And care, care, participation as elements of every life. Seldom is it so wonderfully funny as in Judith Hopf's 2006 video “Hospital Bone Bed” with Deborah Schamoni, where suffering, waiting, and uncertainty are contrasted with wit and pop.

The fact that the internationally equipped exhibition, as director Susanne Pfeffer says, the first of its kind, on the one hand gives many, including many very young, visual artists with impairments, disabilities or illnesses wide space, is one type of participation.

The other is to give an invitation to carry out the questions and attitudes, sometimes the inversions of attitudes, that are stimulated and demanded by the work.

In this respect, “Crip Time” is also definitely activist.

And quotes Johanna Hevka: It's about repairing the world.

"CRIP TIME", Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt, until January 30, 2022.