Us and Them. An intricate history of otherness

From images of mythical creatures and demons recorded in prints by modern masters like Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer or Lucas van Leyden; from illustrations in books on monsters datable to the late 15th and early 16th centuries; from mass-produced engraving presenting exotic tribes of the new world; from 19th-century illustrations for manuals in medicine and natural sciences; from portraits, and political and life-style caricatures; from selected examples of 20th-century circus posters; from comic books on Batman and films directed by Tod Browning and F.W. Murnau, we have built an exhibitions on otherness.
Through these images we wish to speak about the history of prejudice, fear and fascination; about the history of human judgements on nature; about permanent divisions to "us" and "them". The lives of the heroes of this exhibition – freaks and misfits − have in fact been dependent on an accidental configuration of religious beliefs, political line-ups, wars, disasters and the medical knowledge. In this history, neutral interest in a curio changes into fascination with a person of unusual appearance or a lone hero hiding in the shadow, or – as easily – into repressions against a madman or the enemy. No epoch judged "them" unambiguously.