The exhibition Cartography of Grace, created for the newly opened Einraumhaus, constructs a visual and conceptual map of the personal, institutional, and aesthetic entanglements of artists listed on the Nazi-era “Gottbegnadeten-Liste” (“God-gifted list”) and traces their afterlives into the present.

The work examines how aesthetic value systems, artistic authority, and narratives of supposed “non-politicalness” persist, and what traces they leave behind in museums, collections, public spaces, and educational structures. In this framing, the present does not appear as a rupture, but as a terrain shaped and traversed by historical lines of power.

The starting point is a sculpture of a young, nude, idealized male figure, which caught the attention of the directors of the Einraumhaus on the grounds of the former Benjamin Franklin Village, standing in the middle of a sheep enclosure. It was created by the sculptor Fritz Klimsch, who was listed on the elite “Special List A” of the “Gottbegnadeten-Liste.”

Geiger places this figure in dialogue with his Cartography of Grace, thereby continuing his performance series Bust Talks. In these conversations with statues and busts, he interrogates their aesthetic, historical, and political potential, as well as the issues they raise in the present day.