Introduction

What Are We Made Of?: Works from the Art Collection Telekom, the first exhibition of the year 2019 at the Kunsthalle Darmstadt, features about 35 works by artists from the cultural space of Eastern Europe who are represented in the Art Collection Telekom, including the work of Roman Ondak.

The historic change that has been eliminating the factual and ideological gulf between Eastern and Western Europe, between capitalism and communism since the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s provides the backdrop for narratives and references unfolding in the artworks. They give the opportunity to us to reflect on what supposedly characterizes people in "East" and "West" and on the question: "What are we made of?"