Art | Culture

Finissage: Death and Life. Power and powerlessness

Wilhelm Warning in conversation with the artist and photographer Herlinde Koelbl about her current exhibition.
Friday, 10.11.2023
© Johannes Rodach
© Johannes Rodach

Herlinde Koelbl raises many questions, such as the relationship between power and powerlessness. About ethics and morality of human action in the face of killing. About killing to save life, one's own and that of others. About the value of a human life, given by God in its individual particularity. This, too, is reflected in the exhibition in many portraits that bring home the individuality, dignity and preciousness of the gift of life. Death and life. Wilhelm Warning

Special note:

Registration for the event is not necessary.

Programme of the event:

This is how the photographer, documentary filmmaker and author author Herlinde Koelbl begins her essay on a project that she called "targets". Around the world, she photographed the shooting targets of soldiers who learn to kill as efficiently as efficiently as possible, extinguishing lives with one shot. with one shot. Torn cardboard comrades, tinny heads, plastic bodies. Not gaming, but practice for the emergency. Dress rehearsal for war. Human figures as shooting targets. The exhibition shows the opponent as a threatening object in human form, stripped of all individuality individuality, just as the uniformity of the uniformed soldiers uniformity deprives the uniformed soldiers of the fullness of their personality. personality from the uniformed soldiers. Photos do not judge, but rather but impressively condense image after image. Herlinde Koelbl thus raises many questions: for example about the relationship between power and powerlessness. About ethics and morality of human behaviour in in the face of killing. About killing in order to save lives, one's own own and that of others. About the value of a human life human life, given by God in its individual individual uniqueness. This is also reflected in the exhibition in many portraits that bring home the individuality, dignity and preciousness of the gift of life. Death and life. Wilhelm Warning

Other current events

Transformation theologisch gedeutet
Monday, 24.11. - Wednesday, 26.11.2025
Heike Steinweg/Suhrkamp Verlag
Jenseits der Schutzzonen
Literarischer Abend mit Nora Bossong
Monday, 24.11.2025
Erzbistum Paderborn/Isabella Maria Struck
Missbrauch aufdecken und erinnern: das Paderborner Mahnmal
Akademiegespräch mit Reinhold Harnisch, Christoph Brech und Msgr. Dr. Michael Bredeck
Wednesday, 26.11.2025
Die astrophysikalische Forschung zu Exoplaneten
Wednesday, 26.11.2025

From the event archive

Being there is not everything. We document our events - free of charge for you - as text, audio or video to give the lectures and discussions a higher reach.

Wikimedia Commons
Kathedral-Bau im 19. und 21. Jahrhundert als Konstruktion von Geschichte und Identität
22.11.2025
CC BY-SA 3.0, A. Delesse (Prométhée) Wikimedia Commons
Akademiegespräch am Mittag mit Prof. Dr. Ursula Münch und Marco Wanderwitz
12.11.2025
Wikimedia Commons
Zum 250. Geburtstag von Friedrich Schelling diskutieren Harald Lesch und Wilhelm Vossenkuhl dessen Naturbegriff
11.11.2025

Many more interesting topics

Being there is not everything. We document our events - free of charge for you - as text, audio or video to give the lectures and discussions a higher reach.

You can find the presentations of past events in our media library.