What do Frankenstein, Darth Vader, the sorcerer’s apprentice, Smeagol aka. Gollum, the i-Robot and many, many more heroes of books and films have in common? They all follow the tradition of the same Jewish legendary figure. The Golem was once formed from a lump of clay and brought to life. A Golem has enormous strength and part of its destiny is that it outgrows its creator and threatens to destroy him before he inevitably has to return to what he once was: an inanimate mass. Well, that does sound familiar. Golem begins with the Hebrew bible and leads, with constantly new transformations, into the present to gene technology, artificial intelligence, computers and robotics. And because creature and topic have been firing the imagination and thoughts of humans for decades, particularly those of artists, the wonderful Jewish Museum in Berlin is dedicating an impressive special exhibition to Golem and all his companions. In seven room-encompassing chapters and an epilogue, stories, objects and artwork from 600 years span 900 sqm, amongst them objects on loan from distinguished museums and private collections from around the world, for example the MoMA in New York or the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. We walked into this exhibition – which started on September 23rd and goes on until January 29th, 2017 – by chance last weekend and were so fascinated, inspired and confused by it that we just had to tell you about it. This is how culture should be. Edutainment on the highest level. Go and see!
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GOLEM |  Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Altbau first floor | until January 29th, 2017 | entrance 8 €, red. 3 € | jmberlin.de/golem

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