This extraordinary exhibition at Cabaret Voltaire brings the hitherto largely unknown cosmos of Emma Jung (1882-1955) into dialog with the contemporary artist Rebecca Ackroyd

This extraordinary exhibition at Cabaret Voltaire brings the hitherto largely unknown cosmos of Emma Jung (1882-1955) into a dialog with contemporary artist Rebecca Ackroyd (*1987). For the first time, Emma Jung's notes from her analytical practice, including drawings, paintings, poems and notes, will be presented to the public. Emma Jung, a skilled analyst and close interlocutor and collaborator of her husband C.G. Jung, played a key role in shaping research into the human psyche - even though she worked in the background of the famous Swiss psychiatrist. Her work is particularly dedicated to the concept of individuation, i.e. the process in which a person recognizes and develops themselves as an independent individual. The dynamics of animus and anima, the symbolism of the Grail legend as a symbol of the inner spiritual journey and the striving for wholeness play a central role here. As a result, dualities such as culture and nature, good and evil or gender identities dissolve.

There are numerous parallels to Emma Jung in Rebecca Ackroyd's oeuvre. Her drawings also give form to the unconscious and reflect the psychological and spiritual dimension of art as well as processes of "becoming world". Ackroyd's installations are often dreamlike and show the fragmentation of memory and time. Through a diverse visual language that includes large-format paintings, drawings, sculptures and objects, desire and revulsion, wishes and fears, the familiar and the uncanny merge into a fascinating whole. For her first exhibition in Switzerland, Rebecca Ackroyd is developing a new series of drawings and sculptures that are conceived as intimate expressions of symbolic orders. The drawings, deliberately kept small, invite a more intensive encounter with the inner world of creation.

The exhibition at the Cabaret Voltaire - the birthplace of Dada - is inspired by a historical trace: the connections between Emma Jung, analytical psychology and the Dada art movement. In 1916, Emma Jung, then the first president of the Psychological Club, took part in at least one Dada soiree. In that year, she created impressive visual metamorphoses that dealt with individuation processes. Artists such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Hans Arp took up Jungian approaches, for example in their search for typologies and universal forms. The analytical idea of individuation can be compared to the Dadaist breaking of conventions. Analytical psychologists, on the other hand, explore the therapeutic effects of abstract mandalas. Both Dada and analytical psychology focused intensively on the unconscious. Dadaists used the theories of analytical psychology to deal with the social upheavals of the early 20th century, such as the mechanization of life and the traumas of the First World War. Richard Huelsenbeck later noticed a therapeutic quality in the works of many Dadaists.

Emma Jung, born Emma Maria Rauschenbach on March 30, 1882 in Schaffhausen, was a Swiss analyst and author. She gained fame as the wife and close collaborator of psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, but her own contributions to analytical psychology also deserve attention. Emma Jung came from a wealthy and influential industrialist family. Thanks to her privileged background, she received an excellent education, which awakened her interest in literature, philosophy and psychology. In 1903, she married Carl Gustav Jung, with whom she had five children. Not only was she deeply involved in her husband's work, but over the years she also developed into an independent analyst. Her research on Grail symbolism, which was published posthumously in 1960, and her studies on the dynamics of the concepts of animus and anima are particularly noteworthy.

Rebecca Ackroyd, born 1987 in Cheltenham, UK, lives and works in Berlin and London. She completed her Postgraduate 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 the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover; Period Drama at the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover (2023-2024); and Shutter Speed at the Musée d'Art Contemporain, Lyon (2023-2024). Her works have also been part of numerous group exhibitions, including Antéfutur at the 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 the 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 the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, UK (2022); and Singed Lids for the 15th Lyon Biennale. Biennale de Lyon, organized by the Palais de Tokyo (2019).


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