Henrike Naumann, “The Home Front”, Germany, Venice Art Biennale 2026

Henrike Naumann, The Home Front, Germany, Venice Biennale 2026

Henrike Naumann The German Pavilion in the Giardini is exhibiting Henrike Naumann’s three-dimensional work, “The Home Front”.

The central wall through which visitors enter the pavilion is covered with a motley and varied collection of objects, which the artist calls ‘hieroglyphs’.

These are essentially everyday objects from the past, intermingled with depictions of interiors, landscapes and portraits in embossed metal, featuring a gas mask, a pair of shoes, a pitchfork, coat hangers, ties, keys and a beer mug – all seemingly unrelated objects displayed side by side.

Henrike Naumann It is as though the artist’s aim is to throw us off balance as we look at this wall covered with small objects.

Objects that have been handled, have had a life, are now frozen in their past, dehumanised.

This wall, like the two adjacent walls, is painted the same mint green colour that was used in the barracks of the Soviet army when it occupied East Germany.

The other two walls show the interior of a house on one side, and various figures on the other.

The top of these two walls features rows of half-chairs.

Henrike Naumann For the artist, these chairs represent the evolution of German history from the twentieth to the twenty-first century.

The first wall features a three-dimensional interior, devoid of figures, in which green tones predominate.

This interior shows a dining room on the left-hand side and a bedroom on the right-hand side.

This space is cold and metallic, as if every trace of life, love and emotion were forbidden there.

The wall opposite is its antithesis.

Henrike Naumann The clothing worn by the characters as they go about their professional activities is a blend of cool and warm tones.

Warm tones, including red, are reserved for women, whilst blue, black and grey are the preserve of men.

Life is depicted here as inseparable from work.

Henrike Naumann’s work shows us a former Soviet-style German society where the individual was merely a number, a simple tool of production.

The warm-coloured background, against which the crowd of characters is clustered, is made of wood.

Henrike Naumann