01.09.2025 –
14.09.2025
TOWER OF TORMENT – Sigalit Landau
Artistic memorial project by the renowned Israeli artist Sigalit Landau to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald, presented at Kunsthaus Dahlem in the form of a short film
About the Project
Tower of Torment was inspired by an old custom that is observed when Jewish houses are built in the diaspora. According to tradition, a specific area of an east-facing internal wall is left unpainted and uncoated in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Sigalit Landau, Israel’s most important visual artist of her generation, turns this tradition “outwards”: A person holding a paint roller appears on the balcony on the outer façade of the tower in the Gauforum Weimar, which was built using forced labour under the Nazi regime, and begins painting the area around the window black in a radial pattern. Landau’s outer marking of the inside of the tower points to the fact that something is wrong with this place. The window becomes a hole, a wound and a void. Once the circle is complete and the day is out, darkness falls. Another performer switches the light on inside and continues the act using white paint to cover up the black mark.
This striking performance was filmed by the artist specifically for Kunstfest Weimar 2025 and developed into a short film, which will be presented, among other venues, at Kunsthaus Dahlem.
Concept and film: Sigalit Landau, Yotam From
Production: Studio Sigalit Landau, Kunstfest Weimar 2025
Screening Times and Location
The film plays on a loop during opening hours from 1 to 14 September 2025: Wednesday to Monday, 11:00 – 17:00 (closed on Tuesday)
Costs and Tickets
Access to the film is included in the admission price for Kunsthaus Dahlem: see prices.
Admission tickets are available on site.
Sigalit Landau – Biography
Born in Jerusalem in 1969, Sigalit Landau is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installation, video, photography and sculpture. Landau graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem in 1994. After several years in Europe and in the United States, she returned to Tel Aviv, and currently lives and works in Israel. Throughout her career, Landau has received significant awards including the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship (1994), the Wolf foundation Ingeborg Bachman Scholarship, established by Anselm Kiefer (1998); the Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Award, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2004); The Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2016), French Republic Chevalier decoration of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2017), Honorary Doctorate degree from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev (2017).
Landauʼs work has been exhibited globally in museums and leading venues including: MoMA, NY; The Brooklyn Museum of Art; MAGASIN III, Stockholm; Yokohama Triennale, Japan; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; The Israeli Pavilion, The Venice Art Biennale (1997, 2011); Documenta X, Kassel; MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona), and many more. Landau’s works are included in major collections: The Brooklyn Museum, MACBA, MoMA, Centre George Pompidou, The Israel Museum, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art and MoCK (The Museum of Contemporary art Krakow).