RESHAPING TALES | HELGA GEBERT
Telling stories in pictures and words
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»ZWISCHEN GESTALTEN | HELGA GEBERT. Erzählen in Bild und Wort«Permanent Exhibition
GRIMMWELT adventure space
Telling stories in pictures and words
You can click on the chapter heading at the top of the screen to access the list of chapters (e.g. "INTRO").
The exhibition ZWISCHEN GESTALTEN (RESHAPING TALES) opens up an imaginative space which deals with the world of stories in a comprehensive fashion. This first retrospective of the work of the artist Helga Gebert offers the opportunity of experiencing her picture and text worlds as vibrant spaces full of stories. The tales are further developed, reinterpreted and reinvented – never completed, always in progress.
Within a spatial dialogue, Helga Gebert's artistry and her aesthetic and narrative strategies are revealed in the context of current discourses on narrative cultures. Artistic questions are interwoven with narrative motifs such as transformation, power, gender and self-empowerment. Each section is given a verb as title, offering room for active individual storytelling.
In the process, perspectives, meanings, and emphases shift—each new narrative sets different priorities.
"What is that compared to what I shall tell you tomorrow night?" asks Sheherazade during the course of The Arabian Nights. Just like Sheherazade, Helga Gebert tells stories here that are never complete: fairy tales, images and life stories change with the voice of each new storyteller – and this exhibition invites visitors to decide how the stories will continue.
WHO IS HELGA?
Along this narrative track, there are biographical insights into Helga Gebert's life, the places she lived, and her attitude – serving as a reminder that there is a storyteller in every listener. With over 2,000 illustrations and more than 30 book publications, Helga Gebert has created a narrative universe of fantastical worlds and vivacious characters. She was born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1935 and already began to paint as a child. Her work ranges from her own picture books and illustrations of Grimm's fairy tales to the translation and illustrative interpretation of the tales from The Arabian Nights.
In her world of pictures and text, Helga Gebert visualises the lively processes by which tales come into being. Fairy tales and stories do not appear as final versions, but as a collective web of narratives that changes with every retelling: motifs are emphasised, left out or re-woven. Stories that have been handed down through time remain anchored in their political and social context, yet they can also transcend cultural and national boundaries. By comparing different versions and their illustrations it can be shown that retelling can serve not only to confirm systems but also to disturb them.
When the Brothers Grimm transcribed the oral storytelling tradition (from 1812 onwards in their Children's and Household Tales), they transformed the form, tone and reception of fairy tales radically. Illustrated editions became popular, establishing a strong relationship between the text and the pictures. Well-known motifs, such as Cinderella's appearance at the ball, continue to shape our perceptions of the story and its characters to this day.
Helga Gebert's illustrations for the Grimms' fairy tales repeat, reinterpret and reinvent visual motifs. They steer sympathies and influence moods. Even minor shifts in perspective can have a major impact – for instance, when the reflection of Snow White's stepmother in the magic mirror suddenly turns into a bird. This highlights the power of storytelling: the person who tells the story organises the world and decides which voices are to be heard – those who are silenced remain invisible.
I have not (wanted / been able to do) done a literal translation
WHO IS HELGA?
Helga Gebert is a storyteller. She is interested in stories – her own and those she has found, the ones told at home and tales from far away. She is inspired by them, questions them and dresses them in new garb. The artist rewrites the texts if she finds them unsuitable.
Strong characters prevail in her atmospheric, humorous, yet unconventional illustrations: Petrosinella's wild and magical helpers, the wilily scowling witch Dame Gothel, or a self-assured Cinderella, whose intensive gaze challenges the viewers' preconceptions. Every picture is a decision – whether "for" or "against".
Helga Gebert also writes and illustrates her own stories – making it clear how storytelling functions. She draws from a collective store of narratives, combining old and new, and this storyteller proves to be a particularly good listener.
Petrosinella (Basile, 1634) and Rapunzel (Grimm, from 1812) tell the same story: after her mother has eaten herbs stolen from the neighbouring garden, a young girl is promised away to the owner, an ogress or Dame Gothel, who locks her up in a tower. Yet Petrosinella is the more cunning and active of the two – she escapes with magical assistance and outwits her pursuer. Rapunzel, on the other hand, becomes the object of surveillance and moral discipline. Whilst Basile's version is still deeply rooted in the Baroque Southern Italian narrative tradition with its crude, magical twists, the Brothers Grimm smooth out the plot, moralising it and focusing on the themes of virtue, guilt and punishment.
Helga Gebert's illustrations bring these stylistic and thematic differences to light. The scene of the abduction remains the connecting thread. This comparison opens up scope for new interpretations and the question of how these stories might be re-told or re-versed today: should the girl be a rebel or a disciplined heroine?
The transformation scenes in various versions of the Cinderella motif undergo a shift from active magic to passive assistance. In 9th-century Asian versions a magical fish comes to the aid of the heroine, while Basile's Cinderella (1634) commands the date palm to transform her. Perrault (1697), on the other hand, lets a fairy godmother perform the magic. The Grimms (1812) replace self-effectiveness with the motif of the dove and the hazel bush – as a reference to divine help. In Disney's Cinderella (1950), the magic spell ultimately becomes a musical spectacle.
Helga Gebert's illustration of an androgynous figure, by contrast, depicts a self-assured Cinderella . She does not transform her outward appearance with dazzling gold adornments, but undergoes an inner process: eye contact, posture and expression reveal inner strength. The protagonist emerges, contradicting the passive, introverted demeanour of the fairy tale and thereby challenging the viewer: is magical, divine help necessary to gain one's freedom – or can one rely on one's own strength?
Time and again, Helga Gebert portrays characters from different fairy tales together in her pictures: Rumpelstiltskin adopts Cinderella’s name for himself, Cinderella’s doves are pecking in Snow White’s home. With her puzzle pictures she invites you to find the ‘mistakes’ – and at the same time asks you to identify the ‘correct version’. Thus she turns passive viewers into active narrators. The question of the ‘correct’ story is made into a question of your own perspective. Are the pictures ‘at fault’ – or is it rather the canonical expectations?
When figures meet up who are apparently unknown to one another, they are placed in a common situation – transcending the boundaries of the stories. The bonding of these figures and their contexts shows that fairy tales are living tapestries in which new connections can constantly be formed. By playing around with roles that seem to be ‘wrong’, Helga Gebert unveils the power of storytelling. Who makes the decisions? Who arranges the plot? And who is part of the story?
When stories and fairy tales are retold, social and political motifs are always reflected. Walt Disney's first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was released in the USA in 1937. Although the Nazi regime showed great interest, negotiations failed, and the film could not be brought to Germany. Instead, a German film of the fairy tale was produced in 1939. In the still from the Nazi era, one can see how Snow White is portrayed as an ideal of beauty according to racist physical norms. The "beautiful, pure" heroine is turned into a projection of ideological phantasies.
Markus Lefrançois's illustration emphasises the moral emotion of envy: the stepmother's green, distorted face clearly and unambiguously denotes evil, and her inner nature becomes visible.
Helga Gebert's picture of the stepmother in front of the mirror refrains from such unambiguity. As her reflection transforms her into a bird, she becomes a dazzling, ambiguous, yet also disconcerting figure poised between power, vulnerability and potential liberation. The interplay of the images reveals how every retelling distributes the roles, shapes bodies and encodes emotions – thus always re-casting the world order which is to be underlined in the fairy tale.
Fairy tale characters sit together at Helga Gebert's table: Cinderella, the Frog Prince, the Bremen Town Musicians. The boundaries between the stories are abolished, and the collective memory is depicted as a meal being shared.
In her story The Hedgehog and the Mouse in the Tree House, Gebert takes classical motifs (a hair from the king's beard) and mixes them with Dadaist provocations (trash and rubbish). Fairy tale structures collapse and are recomposed.
Retelling preserves traditions. Yet methods of deconstruction and recombination can also create something new, opening the path to fantastical and utopian worlds. The fairy tale canon is transformed into alternative worlds. Accepted perspectives are called into question, characters swap their roles, proverbs are turned into the opposite, and logic is reversed. Storytelling draws on the cultural pool – every reteller weaves the material differently.
Helga Gebert's pictures and texts show that creativity comes by drawing on what already exists, not by inventing something out of the blue. At the end of her story, she poses the question, "What happened with with the beard of the Rat King? Can you continue the story?"
Text narrated by Jasper Engelhardt
The invention and creation of figures is what makes stories lively. Helga Gebert's collection of figures consists of characters from all phases of her creative work, outside the context of their stories: the red-haired giant, the green-skinned, man-eating ogre, or the beautifully clothed princess. In this collection, visitors are invited to take a closer look at individual figures and relate to them. They can also investigate the origins of the figure illustrations, whose interpretation frequently developed through their interaction or comparison with one another.
It is the visual artwork which imbues the figures with concrete shape: character traits become visible in bodily features and influence the readers' understanding of the stories. They are depicted as funny, eerie, beautiful or ugly, good or evil – thus leading the viewers to identify with them or to reject them. As actors in the narrative, they do not play a neutral part, but rather contribute to the perspectives of the stories. When they are seen in relation to one another, they generate productive disturbance and reveal Helga Gebert's search for tensions.
Helga Gebert's characters challenge us to consider how differences do not necessarily form contradictions, but rather overlap and create new patterns. Observation of the figures loosens rigid attributions of character.
WHO IS HELGA?
Helga Gebert loves figures who are amusing as well as those who do not conform – and she loves the way their appearance is exaggerated. She prefers to dwell on the miller’s rotund belly rather than on the good-looking, yet witless prince.
With her depictions of physical characteristics she explores the boundaries of stigmatisation, whilst simultaneously shifting stereotypes of beauty and ugliness that obtain in society. The attributions are not always clear-cut – in some cases, one can detect a degree of sympathy for particular kinds of figure, such as threatening giants, or faces marked by age. As an artist, she treats her figures like a partner: "When painting, I usually have precise ideas. But often, other forms come to win through."
Helga Gebert does not wish to conform – neither as an artist nor as a private individual. When she is photographed, she prefers to pull faces. Just like her figures, she would rather not be categorised.
In her children's books, Helga Gebert maps out ways to reach a world of fantasy. The crossing of the border between different kinds of reality is clearly marked tangibly visibly and physically. Irma and Eugen fall, slide or dive – they lose control and end up in unbelievable worlds. Animals, such as the hen that can write, begin to speak, feel and think. In a playful and humorous way, these fantastic alternative worlds challenge our social orders. Fluctuating between the familiar and the foreign, they destabilise firmly held realities. Existing circumstances are "readjusted", unfulfilled wishes granted, and alternative conceptions of space, time, power and objects are born.
Inventing stories is an exercise in thinking. The boundary between fantasy and reality acts here as a space for imagination, allowing not just the creation of stories but also the transformation of reality itself.
In Helga Gebert's collection Phantastische Märchen (Fantastic Fairy Tales), the laws of nature are suspended and transformations and shape-shifting made possible. Superhuman beings – dragons, giants, merpeople – come close to being conceived and experienced. Here again, a space between reality and imagination is opened up where the impossible can be conceived.
WHO IS HELGA?
Helga Gebert's working method is a journey into the world of fantasy. It is particularly her picture puzzles that show how quickly fantasy can be inspired – more by ambiguity than in definable clarity. Carried away by stories and images, she is constantly able to discover, design and hold on to new worlds. It is not always clear who is in control here:
"When I’m doing the painting, the figures want to do it the other way round."
She loves the ambivalence between humour and horror, between charm and gloom, between obedience and disobedience. The words and the pictures often merge to form independent worlds, showing how strongly the one determines the other.
She weaves happenings from her family's everyday life into her fantastical tales: Irma searches for Eugen just as her orderly mother searches for the fun-loving father. With her grandchildren, she draws a "Something-or-other" – because anything can change into something else, and anyone can change into someone else. In this way, not just worlds are transformed, but also identities.
Helga Gebert's first picture books were published in 1974/75 in Beltz & Gelberg's series BilderBuch. They deal with the transition between fantastic worlds and the real environment. According to Hans-Joachim Gelberg, youth and children's literature should reflect the realities of life: not in order to educate children, but to enable them to find orientation in their surroundings without fleeing into perfect worlds of fantasy. In this way, imagination and storytelling become a force for emancipation – there is room for change in the world within the dialogue between imagination, utopia and reality.
Self-reliant children are the main characters here. In "Zwei an einem Dienstag" (Two on a Tuesday), Johann and Jonny use the power of imagination to transform their everyday lives – yet in the end, it is real encounters, not dream worlds, that lead to astonishing discoveries in unknown realms. "Irma sucht Eugen" (Irma Searches for Eugen) begins with a fall into a deep hole, the start of an adventure in a fantastic underworld. Irma loses her way, discovers the unknown and returns with a changed perspective:
"Nobody will believe us."
Helga Gebert's view of the role of fantasy and its significance for reality appears ambivalent. Whilst a firm and emancipatory embedding in reality is to be found in the BilderBuch series, Helga Gebert opens up paths to magical otherworlds in her Phantastische Märchen (Fantastic Fairy Tales), published in 1980 by Beltz & Gelberg, and since 2018 by Anaconda Verlag. Dwarves, giants, dragons and merfolk populate her drawings in which she retells traditional legends. Whilst Beltz & Gelberg's BilderBuch programme used fantasy as an aid to self-empowerment in reality, it serves in this case as a place of refuge and a means of resistance against accepted orders. Helga Gebert's classifications and her lexicon of fairy tales offer alternative orders of existence – so that the artist becomes a purveyor of knowledge from the otherworld.
Helga Gebert's fantastical illustrations of global fairy tale topics create hybrid worlds in which boundaries between cultures and species disappear. But however much the creatures she depicts may resemble one another, beneath the surface the collective memory of the respective cultures shimmers through. Every dragon, every monster remains ultimately rooted in its original story. Even fantastical figures are bearers of cultural layers – nothing can be viewed in isolation, not even a world that has been thought up.
Fairy tales are roaming narratives: they change their appearance as they traverse languages and cultures. Every translation reshapes identities, modifies values and enables the stories to survive as a culturally re-woven web.
This becomes particularly clear in the tales from The Arabian Nights, in which the original material was reinterpreted and reshaped by European orientalisation. Antoine Galland's French translation (1704–1717) continues to shape Western reception to this day: the storyteller Sheherazade is exoticised, as Western notions come to overlay Arab realities. Images and attributions are influenced in a European fashion and exploited for social and political ends.
The migration of fairy tales across different cultural spheres leads to transcultural interweavings. Newly translated versions can offer insights into other cultures, but may also contribute to the construction and consolidation of what is "alien".
Helga Gebert's sketches, notes and visual interpretations of The Arabian Nights show how the act of translation can bring meanings into a state of flux become fluid and create motifs that can be read in hybrid ways. When some African guinea hens from her husband's farm suddenly become part of the story, they give rise to surprising associations and a shift of characters, motifs and culturally defined spaces. Translation involves a reinterpretation of contexts, emotions and values. It is not merely the transposition of an original, but a transformation of languages, cultures and imaginations.
With a video installation by Catrine Val.
WHO IS HELGA?
Over the course of her life, Helga Gebert has learnt Italian, Spanish, English, French and finally Arabic. Large numbers of notes record her attempts to grapple with languages, whereby she often begins to sketch out an interweaving of two linguistic levels. She understands translation as a kind of self-transformation into history and language – whilst simultaneously perceiving them from a distance. Her work with languages reveals how her artistic endeavour is entangled with her political commitment. Her knowledge of Arabic expresses itself not just in her engagement with the tales from The Arabian Nights, but also in her translation of refugee experiences – the stories which she has heard during many years in an initiative supporting those who have fled their homeland.
For her, real-life stories and destinies form a counterpoint to the fantastical and magical world of fairy tales. They have an impact on one another in language and imagery: "A fairy tale has to have a happy ending." – Storytelling is the culmination of Helga Gebert's flight.
Even those who have never read One Thousand and One Nights are familiar with its fairy-tale world. The framework of the story is well-known: the vengeful King Shahryar has one woman after another killed – until the clever Scheherazade outwits him. Night after night she tells him a story, breaking off at morning light. Out of curiosity and wanting to hear how the story goes on, the king spares her life.
The work, running to almost 5,000 pages, has no single author. It grew in the course of centuries and was constantly evolving. European translations from the early 18th century had a lasting impact on the Western image of the Orient. The first uncensored, critical Arabic edition appeared in 1984, published by the literary scholar Muhsin Mahdi.
From 1993 onwards, Helga Gebert published individual volumes with Beltz & Gelberg, followed in 2005 by the anthology Aladin und die Wunderlampe (Aladdin and the Magic Lamp). The story of Aladdin is presumably one of the best known in Europe. But originally it did not belong to the fairy tale cycle at all – in 1712, it was added to the collection by Antoine Galland, based on a story by Hanna Diyab. The 1992 Disney film adaptation made it particularly popular with children. Helga Gebert's illustrations, however, do not refer to popular images of the blue genie, the magic lamp or the flying carpet. She prefers to make detailed depictions of the jinn and seemingly minor scenes.
GOOD TO KNOW
Genies (Arabic: Djinn; Turkish: Cin) are creatures mentioned in the Quran. According to Islamic belief, they are supernatural spirits. Like humans, angels and demons, they are part of God's creation. These non-material beings live in a parallel world, much like angels, and were created from fire. Only a few human beings are able to make contact with them.
For Helga Gebert, learning languages is an integral part of her work on fairy tales. In the Arabic language, several realities are combined for her into one single project. Her notes are an amalgamation of the assignments completed at a language school, the attempt to translate fragments from fairy-tale texts, as well as the translation of refugees' stories. The form of her notes reveals how she is working at one and the same time with the various languages and the worlds. Time and again, the textual layers intertwine.
In Helga Gebert's linguistic collages, it becomes clear how diverse realities overlap within a single language. It remains open what role the narrators play. What is the original language position leading to these texts – European translations of Arabic literature, simplified examples for language students, or personal reports by migrants and refugees?
In Catrine Val's video, mothers who live in Kassel today, all coming from different cultural backgrounds, tell the story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp in their respective mother tongues.
The shootings were made in the countryside around Kassel and also in the surroundings of the GRIMMWELT. The storytellers are filmed in close-up, concentrating on their voices, hands and gestures, so that the fairy tale is approached from a child's perspective.
In the context of Helga Gebert's work, language can be read as translation, movement and a means of passing on stories. This is the path followed by this video project. The focus is on the sound and melody of the mother tongue. Each voice brings its own rhythm and transforms the story.
Fairy tales have been passed down orally through generations, often by mothers – a tradition that is here brought into the present and made audible. The result is a polyphonic narrative in which the story of Aladdin takes on a new form with every voice.
The tales from One Thousand and One Nights are often described as a collection of the most beautiful love and adventure stories – yet they are far more than that.
The Tales of Love speak of lust, desire and strong female narrators – far more radically than the "bowdlerised" European versions by Antoine Galland and Gustav Weil would suggest. These translations expunged or toned down sex, crudeness and cruelty, but the Egyptian feminist Suhayr al-Qalamawi emphasises in her early dissertation (1929) the emancipatory power of the original stories, in which women desire, choose and contradict. There have been numerous attempts to censor The Arabian Nights down to this day – for example in 2010, when an Egyptian bar association demanded the confiscation of the stories of One Thousand and One Nights and the expurgation of "indecent" passages. This was justified on the grounds of "un-Islamic morality" and "blasphemy". However, the lawsuit was dismissed by the court in Cairo.
The Arabian Nights reveals how storytelling can serve as a medium for political and social critique: Scheherazade's endless storytelling becomes a symbolic force of resistance against tyrants and allows room for sensual freedom. In doing so, she holds up a mirror to the West and exposes the portrayal of Arab-Islamic culture as a projection of Western ideas. Women like Scheherazade do not need to be "rescued" – they emancipate themselves. With her voice, Scheherazade undermines the power of King Shahryar. Storytelling becomes a form of female self-determination.
After the merchant Sinbad has lost almost all his possessions, he boards a ship and sets sail across the ocean. In total, he embarks on seven overseas voyages and experiences many adventures. An island paradise turns out to be a giant fish. A king rewards him with riches for the stories of his adventures. On his second voyage, he discovers a huge white dome – which turns out to be the egg of an even larger bird. Sinbad lets the bird carry him away: he discovers a valley guarded by snakes and strewn with diamonds. He manages to make his escape, laden with large diamonds.
On another voyage, he is rewarded for inventing the saddle and gets married. Yet the island has strange customs: he narrowly escapes being buried alive. Only after his seventh voyage – on which he escapes from devilish bird-men – does Sinbad decide to end his travels and settle permanently in Baghdad.
In her epilogue to Sindbads Reisen (Sinbad’s Journeys), Helga Gebert describes how she opted for a different ending to this story and chose to omit descriptions of violence – "I left them out". It seemed pointless to her to burden Sinbad with atrocities at the end. She lets him remain an explorer.
Das Ebenholzpferd (The Ebony Horse), published by Beltz & Gelberg in 1993, is Helga Gebert's first book taken from the tales of The Arabian Nights. In an epilogue, she describes the problems of translation, the multitude of different versions, and the many paths taken by the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Her edition is ultimately based on various translations by English and German "orientalists", whose versions she compares. "I […] found contradictions, but on the other hand many similarities, sometimes word for word."
Fairy tales are "repeatedly endowed with new attire from one translator to the next". This suggests that the pictorial translations, too, follow their own rules. On a preliminary sketch for The Story of Abu Mohammad Lazybones, Helga Gebert has written a note to say that she took guinea fowl as the model for the birds. The story does not mention any bird-like creatures, nor is the guinea fowl located in the Arab world. Instead, their presence is a reference to the artist's personal experiences in Namibia.
"Hardly had I taken the sword into my hand, when I heard a noise of cries and found myself in the midst of a multitude of folk whose eyes were in their breasts."
In this case, Helga Gebert's associative connections gave rise quite intuitively to transcultural visual worlds.
Text comparison:
G. Weil: "O Fate, you spare me not and have no mercy; my life hangs indeed between torment and peril. Have you no pity for a great leader of his people, who was humiliated in the bond of love, for the richest among his people, who has been reduced to poverty?"
E. Littmann: "O Fate, do not torment me always, do not wound me; see how my poor heart breaks in distress and danger. You have no mercy on the mighty man whom love has humbled, nor on the rich man whom it has driven into poverty."
F. P. Greve: "O world, O fate, withdraw your hand! And strike me no longer – behold how my spirit winces in pain, and how it lies awake in terror: will you never grant rest to the noble one who lost his way on the path of love – and sank into poverty and distress in place of wealth and power?"
Max Habicht, Fr. H. von der Hagen, Carl Schall: "O Fate. Let me live no longer, and spare me no more; for my existence hovers between misfortune and danger. Have you no pity, my wife, for a man of noble birth who was brought low under the dominion of love? Not for one of the richest who has been reduced to poverty?"
From: Helga Gebert, "Das Ebenholzpferd" (The Ebony Horse), Beltz & Gelberg Verlag, Weinheim 1993
Three sisters confess their most secret wishes to one another and are overheard by a king. The youngest wishes for a king as her husband and promises to give him three beautiful children. He marries her, and she bears three children, including Princess Perisadah.
But the jealous sisters throw the three newborn children into the river. A gardener rescues them and brings them up. The queen is cast out. After the gardener's death, Perisadah and her brothers continue to live in the gardener's house. An old pilgrim visits them there and tells Perisadah about three wondrous things that would make her garden "the most magnificent on earth": Bulbul, the speaking nightingale, the singing tree and the dancing water.
Perisadah sends her brothers out in search of them, but they find themselves in danger. Disguised as a man, she frees her brothers and finds the treasures herself. At a festival, the speaking nightingale reveals the children's true origins. The queen is released from exile, and the sisters are punished for their intrigues. The family is reunited.
The poor man Hasan from Basra is deceived by a magician, who lures him to a mountain of the Jinns in order to sacrifice him. Hasan escapes and meets seven beautiful princesses on the islands of Wak-Wak – the king’s daughters. They are bird-women: by day they appear as birds with plumage, by night they transform into women. The youngest daughter falls in love with Hasan. But the magician kidnaps Hasan and locks him away. The princesses free him, and Hasan is able to marry the youngest sister – yet she must return to her family's kingdom. He tries to reach her, defeats jinns and demons, and eventually finds her again. Together they return to Basra – where Hasan becomes a wealthy king.
The illustrations for Hasan and the Bird-Woman are characterised by muted colours, which contrast with the colourful robes and plumage of the bird-women. A number of fantastical characters are included in the compositions.
For each of her volumes of "Tausendundeine Nacht" (One Thousand and One Nights), Helga Gebert designed a book cover that distils the orientalising imagery into a pattern. To this end, she produced delicate preliminary sketches, which she later coloured.
Transformation is a powerful motif in numerous fairy tales and stories. Metamorphoses and fantastical alterations unleash magical potentials that are quite inconceivable in the real world – humans turn into animals or plants, producing hybrid creatures with unexpected capabilities. However, in many cases, bodies are modified as a result of curses and punishments: noses begin to grow, an evil spell brings bodily disfigurement – but when the curse is lifted, the normal state established in the fairy tales is restored.
These narratives deal with body images that are deeply rooted: what is "ugly" is transformed into "beauty". What is construed as abnormal has to be overcome in order to find acceptance and happiness. Bodies that deviate from the norm often appear as a defect, a punishment or a curable flaw – "unblemished" heroes triumph, while figures deviating from the norm remain evil or excluded, prevented from participating in society.
The selection of motifs exhibited here demonstrates such transformation in pictures and text. Some of the illustrations defy established patterns: Helga Gebert's figures often remain in the in-between – on the threshold between bodies, role models and exceptional circumstances – thereby revealing the power of ambiguity. People encounter worlds in the depths of the sea, come to speak with a bear or are suddenly transformed into a wolf: the productive crossing of such frontiers creates room for a multitude of body images, gender identities and affiliations.
WHO IS HELGA?
Transformations investigate the permeability between forms. For Helga Gebert, change processes are more than an aesthetic motif – they signify relationship: feeling respect and understanding for other living beings, sensing a bond, and engaging in a depicted dialogue between human and animal. "I shall be transformed," it says in her collection Märchen der Verwandlung (Fairy Tales of Transformation).
Yet there remains a perceptible desire for orientation. Whilst mutable figures allow for openness and ambiguity, one-dimensional characters in fairy tales provide relief in a confusing world. Helga Gebert plays with the entire spectrum of tension. For her own life, too, takes place within this tension of the "in-between": she is both an independent artist whose freedom clashes with the expectations of society, and also a figure of political resistance, committed to the anti-nuclear movement and the support of refugees.
For her, transformation becomes an attitude – a pendulum swinging back and forth between internal and external forces, between allegiance and independence – and is also an invitation to understand identity as an ongoing process.
"What I become is what I want to be." (From a Siberian fairy tale)
The motif of the long nose is widespread in fairy tales and literature and is used symbolically to represent lying, betrayal, mockery or magical transformation. In literary and cultural studies of the motif of the nose, it is regarded as a sign for a deformity of character or physique.
In the fairy tale The Long Nose (from Grimms' Children and Household Tales of 1815), it is the consumption of magical fruits that causes the characters' noses to grow so long that they become completely unable to move. In Zwerg Nase (Little Longnose by Wilhelm Hauff, 1826), a fairy transforms Jakob into an "ugly" dwarf with a huge nose and a hunchback; the nose signifies enchantment and social exclusion due to physical characteristics.
In her illustrations, Helga Gebert employs the technique of exaggeration, combining tragedy and comedy, for example when the nose worms its way through the room, or when the princess leans on it while washing.
GOOD TO KNOW
As early as the Middle Ages, but particularly from the 19th century onwards, anti-Semitic imagery was widespread in literature and culture, showing exaggerated, hooked noses in order to stigmatise Jewish characters. Even though the fairy tales shown here are not based on explicitly anti-Semitic motifs, one should be conscious of these pictorial traditions when encountering descriptions and depictions of nose types, so that the discrimination associated with them is exposed.
In fairy tales it is often the case that the characters must change some bodily features that are rejected by society in order to find happiness or love. The "wrong" skin colour, wrinkles or other features are regarded as flaws that are "corrected" through magical or violent means.
In The Puma Who Could Do Magic, a girl is deemed "too dark and too poor" for marriage: the puma washes her "white" – a motif that can clearly be read as racist. In A Tale of Twins, an old man beats a wrinkled witch until her skin peels off like the bark of a tree, and underneath she appears young and "beautiful". She returns the favour by "beating" him back into youth – now they both conform to the ideal of beauty and can marry.
The norms of beauty determine social participation, whereby these norms are constructed socially and politically. Bodies that deviate from the norm are consequently regarded as "obstacles" to be overcome.
Helga Gebert's illustrations hold these problematic motifs fast. At first glance they appear to be funny or romantic, but then they reveal, in interplay with the texts, the violence behind the ideals of beauty.
When humans are transformed into animals in fairy tales, this is often described negatively. Animals stand for wild, untamed forces of nature that "conquer" the human body and must be resisted in order to restore human order. Such narratives reflect cultural notions of the relationship between humankind and nature – and of what is considered "civilised".
In The Girl in the Moon, lizards and beetles crawl out of an old woman’s eyes and she regains her sight. In The Wondrous Story of Ivan Golik and the Serpents the Tsar’s daughter is "yellow and suffering" because a serpent has entered her body. Ivan frees her by pulling on her braids, whereupon the winged serpent leaves her body. In the love story of Djemil and Djamila, Djamila grows a goat’s head – Djemil leaves her in horror until she transforms back into the "beautiful" girl. The Boy Who Became a Wolf pleads to be spared from being transformed into an animal – he wants to remain human at all costs.
These stories explore the relationship between nature and humanity as a struggle: animalistic ferocity threatens human identity and must be driven away. Animal elements symbolise illness, bedevilment and the loss of civilisation.
Helga Gebert's pictures make these existential struggles visible: creeping insects, winged serpents or goat’s heads draw the boundary between humans and animals as a threatening, yet also negotiable space.
Unlike those animal transformations that pose a threat, the Sicilian legend of Cola Pesce tells of an ambivalent symbiosis: Cola, the son of a fisherman, is capable of diving to the bottom of the sea, where he spends days underwater and becomes "half-man, half-fish".
Emperor Frederick II exploits Cola Pesce's superhuman abilities. First he sends him to dive for valuable objects, then he orders him to explore ever deeper waters. The limits of what is possible are stretched more and more. Cola Pesce becomes nervous. Nonetheless, the Emperor's curiosity drives him to demand one final dive from him. Cola obeys the call once more and never returns. Disregard for the limits of the ocean leads to Cola Pesce becoming a victim of the Emperor's hubris and arrogance. In contrast to the tales of being possessed by animals, it is the idea of human superiority over nature that stands in the foreground here.
Helga Gebert depicts Cola as a hybrid water creature between worlds: transformation is an extension of the human sphere, but it can only exist through mutual respect for boundaries.
Helga Gebert's illustrations of fairy tales from South America, Japan and Siberia reveal a non-Western, animated understanding of nature. Magical transformation of humans into animals and vice versa emphasise their close connection. This transformation in both directions is viewed positively.
In the Siberian fairy tale Umtshegin and the Swan Maidens, this animated world view is particularly evident. The swan maidens are not cursed princesses, but soulful beings who shift between bird and human form, thereby embodying the equality of humans and animals. Their plumage acts as a second skin. While their outer form is changeable, their inner essence is constant – they retain their free existence in the wild. This makes it clear that only respect for the other's independence can keep the relationship in balance.
Helga Gebert's illustrations of these fairy tales make this potential tangible. Through hybrid fusions of human and animal, they give visual form to kinship and a bond of respect.
Transformation becomes emancipatory when it unleashes suppressed or unimagined potential: The Inflatable Blob shows how a conscious treatment of one's own body can unleash new forces and disempower authorities.
The story of the Inflatable Blob is Helga Gebert's first publication with Beltz & Gelberg. It appeared in 1973 in BilderBuch Number 1 – the first annual volume featuring picture stories and comics for children. The Inflatable Blob becomes a companion to Jakob and his father. It is able to change its shape and size with its breath, and thus helps the children cope with the football ban imposed by the policeman and assists the father in his dispute with his employer. The Blob, as an inner helper, articulates what the protagonists had previously not dared to say. Everyday realities are changed for the better. That all takes place without the help of superpowers, just with the power of breath. Awareness of one's own abilities and physical transformation lead here to the experience of new effectiveness. An important recognition for venturing into the world of fear with renewed strength.
Things that are strange, threatening or "different" are found in fairy tales – elements leading to both fascination and discomfort. The uncanny is a reflection of collective and individual anxieties as well as social taboos: threats, cruelty, loss of control or the fear of the unknown appear in concentrated form, able to be told and imagined. Anxiety is shown to be a fundamental emotion of human existence, affecting not only the characters but also the listeners, who identify with them, share their fears and join in overcoming the dangers.
Helga Gebert's pictures make the unspeakable tangible: encounters with archetypal, terrible figures that are often larger than life – witches, monsters, dragons, violent parents – make fear palpable. In her fairy-tale worlds, she explores – frequently humorously – ways of portraying fear and horror. Selected illustrations highlight dark, grotesque and enigmatic motifs. The exhibition space serves as an immersive, multisensory area, in which fear is not merely recounted, but physically experienced. This shows how fear can act in a sense of education, discipline or resistance – varying between warning and overwhelming, between stabilising norms and the opportunity of recognising one’s own fears and overcoming them within the stories. The images provide form and create distance at the same time. With imagination, fears can be approached and felt without causing harm.
The fear emerges, filling the room, and seems at first overpowering. But in the end, who is doing the scaring here, and who is being scared?
With a sound installation by Katharina Zimmerhackl
WHO IS HELGA?
Helga Gebert employs a wide range of visual techniques to heighten the effects of horror – shadow casting, distortion, eyes shining in the darkness, changes of scale or proportions. Yet it is worthwhile to examine her pictures more closely: ambiguities suddenly emerge – is that a smile, is there a gesture or a glance? For her, there is also pleasure to be found in spine-chilling stories. Questioning the boundaries between horror and pleasure makes real-life terror manageable – or at least bearable. Ambivalences allow room for interpretation, thus opening up possibilities for action. Humorous allusions also help to create inner distance.
The painter's life is marked by her involvement with political and social realities. With open eyes and ears she stands up against injustice. Stories, images and fairy tales enable her to withdraw from the real world and deal with it autonomously within new worlds. In this way, her own fear becomes an effective strategy.
Fairy tales lay claim to universal validity, yet they often assert the predominant narratives of a society to the exclusion of other perspectives. Nonetheless, since they are stories with collective authorship, they also encourage processes of appropriation, allowing the emergence of alternative versions that were previously untold. For example, feminist retelling describes the way in which narrative traditions are subversively appropriated, reinterpreted and rewritten with the intention of questioning power structures and making multiple female characters visible. In this way, Little Red Riding Hood gives room for self-determination and solidarity for different kinds of identity.
Helga Gebert's search for original versions and her interest in the diversity of worldwide narratives indicate how she confronts the storytelling traditions. Wherever fairy tales define narrow perspectives canonically, she provides for friction: she illustrates not just the Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood, but also the reverse version by Joachim Ringelnatz. She draws on traditions and undermines them at the same time – in this way, she reveals their inner and outer ambivalences so that the spectators can broaden their perspectives. There is no one truth, no single correct version, or unique and complete fairy tale.
The diversity of more than one Little Red Riding Hood broadens the range of images. Hybrid, ambiguous beings call dichotomous perspectives into question, ultimately letting the panther out of its cage. Helga Gebert's work makes it clear that fairy tales are not finished, but have to be fought for.
WHO AM I?
Helga Gebert has not simply reproduced stories in her pictures – she has wrestled with them, pitching into them in the truest sense of the word. She has questioned them or agreed with them, criticising them in parts, accepting them in others. This wrestling with stories can be applied to many areas of worldly existence and raises questions about attitudes of a personal or political nature.Helga Gebert's illustration for Joachim Ringelnatz's Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood, 1923) playfully subverts the moral of the Grimm brothers' story. This time, the grandmother eats the wolf. With crude verbal jokes and a subversive play on gender roles, the scene breaks with traditional fairy tale ideals.
"The grandmother was a suspicious old woman with many gaps in her teeth. So she asked gruffly: "Who's knocking at my little house?" And the wolf outside put on a false voice and replied: "It's me, Sleeping Beauty!" And the old woman cried: "Come in!" And the wolf swept into the room. And then the old woman put on her nightgown and donned her nightcap and devoured the wolf to the very last morsel."
From: Joachim Ringelnatz, Kuttel daddeldu erzählt seinen Kindern das Märchen vom Rotkäppchen und zeichnet ihnen sogar noch dazu, 1923
Iring Fetscher also turned the world of fairy tales upside down. In his Märchen-Verwirrbuch (Fairy Tale Puzzle Book, 1972), he reinterprets thirteen Grimm tales, devises "possible prequels", offers alternatives and ultimately exposes romantic ideals and naive morals. Helga Ruppert-Tribian's collages accompany this liberating shift in perspective – playfully, provocatively and with a great deal of hidden meaning.
The fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood is deeply rooted in our cultural memory. The roles are clearly defined: the naive victim, the wily perpetrator and a heroic saviour. But what happens when these firmly established hierarchies begin to waver?
The installation Puffed up! invites visitors to intervene physically in the narrative structure of the fairy tale and become co-authors of the story. The central motif of inflation becomes an ambivalent metaphor here: on the one hand, it stands for gaining courage and self-confidence ("puffing oneself up"); on the other, for arrogance and dangerous overconfidence. The outcome of the situation remains uncertain…
The Grimm fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood is characterised by the unequal relationship between Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf. Illustrations such as those by Helga Gebert often use a clear difference of size in order to demonstrate the differences of strength.
In contrast, Helga Gebert's illustration for The Wolf as Suitor depicts an intimate and equal relationship between a girl and a wolf. In the Siberian fairy tale, the youngest daughter voluntarily sacrifices herself for her father and is handed over to the wolf. Yet she is in control of the situation: she cooks for him and fends off a rival. When she burns the wolf's pelt, he transforms into a young man, and they become a happy couple – the girl liberates herself rather than resigning herself to the role of victim.
Even in her early works, Helga Gebert was dismantling hierarchies. A creature that is part human and part animal frees the panther from a cage. Ultimately, all come together in unity. Diversity rather than hierarchy. That is a theme that runs through her entire body of work.
