Atemkristall (Breathcrystal)

Atemkristall (Breathcrystal) Exhibition – 2025

‘Poetry: that can mean an Atemwende, a breathturn. Who knows perhaps poetry travels this route –

also the route of art – for the sake of such a breathturn?’ – Paul Celan, 1960, Meridian speech.

2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the Atemkristall exhibition created by Paul Celan and Gisèle

Lestrange.

In 1965, the Goethe Institute in Paris hosted Atemkristall (Breathcrystal), which was a collection

of twenty-one poems by Celan, mirrored by eight etchings by his partner Gisèle Lestrange. The

Atemkristall poems were later published as the first cycle of twenty-two poems from Atemwende

(Breathturn). Celan writes about Breathturn in his 1960 Merdian speech (above). As a polyglot,

he feels this Breathturn is the precise moment at which language opens up to a multiplicity of

meanings; the point at which it breaks down and is reformulated into new words. To write

without citation, not referencing the grand narratives which have gone before, and to ‘let only

your own words speak’ on their own merits. It is the play of one language to another, adjusted by

a touch of equivalence, being transported from one idea to another through material exchange.

This perpetuum mobile of language, the visual arts and word play is brought about by a

systematic interaction between walking, memory, and current events, whereby the poem creates

an equivalent experience, which can be revisited and explored multiple times.

In 2020, the Beyond Other Horizons exhibition at the Palace of Culture, Iasi, Romania, showcased

eighty-four artists from Romania and the UK, responding to Celan’s poetry, to celebrate 100

years since his birth. Curated by Peter Harrap, Anna McNay and Florin Ungureanu, in partnership

with the Iasi Palace of Culture, Iasi ‘George Enescu’ National University of the Arts, and UCL

SSEES, it focused on themes of Walking, Language and Otherness.

Walking, Language and Otherness will remain key themes for our Atemkristall exhibition, but

with the added interplay of visual equivalence, as originally conceived by Celan and Lestrange in

their exhibition of the same name. The eighty-four exhibiting artists will therefore be requested

to submit a new work, focusing on the themes of the Atemkristall poems.

Paul Celan was born Czernowitz, Romania, now Ukraine, in 1920.

Peter Harrap, artist and curator, PhD(c) Iasi, George Enescu University, Hon UCL, SSEES

Anna McNay, independent writer, editor and curator

Florin Ungureanu, artist and curator, Iasi Palace of Culture, Romania