ilka Leukefeld

ilka Leukefeld is an installation artist. Her parents, Bärbel and Klaus Herre, moved to Halberstadt in 1970. After completing an apprenticeship as an orthopaedic shoemaker, she lived for two years in Prenzlauer Berg, in a squatted flat in the rear building on Schliemannstraße, until the Berlin Wall came down. Sabine Scheib, one of her closest friends, was already on the other side of the Wall at that time. The Scheib family were barred from entering East Germany, so they had to meet in secret in Czechoslovakia.

In East Berlin, she was part of an independent street theatre group and immediately signed up as a member of the Neues Forum. During one of the November demonstrations, she was arrested and held for 24 hours in Rummelburg behind unsecured machine guns. Those detained – many of whom were her friends – found themselves in the same cell or in adjoining ones, fearing for their lives. Those released were viewed with suspicion – had they turned, or had they been government informers from the start? It was utter chaos. Record numbers of migrants heading west, soldiers on delivery vans, coaches full of Stasi agents, demonstrators who turned out to be Stasi thugs. And precisely because Leukefeld longed for change in her country, she was horrified to see the ›revolutionary energy‹ slip away with the opening of the border.

From 1990 to ’92, Leukefeld ran the socio-cultural centre ZORA e. V. in Halberstadt, where Hans-Hermann Richter also taught art courses in painting. Then, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, she went to live in London to improve her English, and stayed to study art. In 2013, she initiated the founding of Monat_Kunst_Halberstadt e. V., and with it the MKH-Biennale, which she organised from England during the early years. She perceived her years in London as artistically liberating, but returned to Halberstadt in 2019, shaken by Brexit and its consequences in the UK. She felt as though her wings had been clipped.

At the Mill, there was a constant coming and going, like a swarm of bees, and the Herres’ house was always full of guests. Wild parties, and debates often went on late into the night. Drawing inspiration from these convivial gatherings, ilka Leukefeld is presenting a video installation at the VI. MKH-Biennale, featuring interviews with all participating artists. Leukefeld conducted the interviews in their studios, whilst documentary filmmaker and cameraman Mirko Beutler captured them on film in video format. The two have been working periodically on joint projects for over thirty years and have structured this work as an interactive roundtable discussion.
Leukefeld deliberately chose such a personal perspective. This emphasises the closeness and familiarity between the interacting artists and demonstrates that art knows no boundaries; indeed, art is very much an important source of communication – both personal and social – for contemporary debates. ilka Leukefeld is organising an artist-led exhibition here for GEGENWART UND REFLEXION – an exhibition that requires no curator, as the artists jointly select the works to be exhibited and discuss key stages of preparation and installation together. Leukefeld has been successfully practising this form of exhibition organisation for many years, both at home and abroad. Those mentioned in the catalogue and participating in the exhibition are, unfortunately, only a fraction of those who could have been included. There are therefore certainly prospects for the long-term continuation of this art project.

ilka Leukefeld
Installation Artist

Artist Residencies / Grants

Regular exhibitions at home and abroad since completing her studies