For Claudia "Wanda" Reichardt, #1 -2022

From Detlev Schneider

Wanda was a stroke of luck for us. Since the early 1980s, she had hosted exhibitions in the dilapidated yet dry rooms of Villa Marie am Blauen Wunder that were unthinkable in official galleries. Tolerated by the cultural authorities, but frowned upon by state security. Then came the paradox of reunification: sold to an "investor", the villa quickly became an upmarket Italian restaurant.

And Wanda came to us at the Festspielhaus. Supported by the labour office as a "job creation measure". Her sense of pragmatic clarity suited us perfectly, because we wanted to reclaim the militarily maltreated house as an art venue in a careful process, we wanted to interweave the searching artistic work in the disparate time layers of this spatial structure with its careful, reparative refurbishment.if this approach was already difficult to communicate politically - Dresden was just about to become a "still life in the German National Gallery", as Durs Grünbein put it - the practical challenges soon became equilibristic. And Wanda became the calming influence. That was one thing.

The other: The Festspielhaus was to become the interface of many arts, their interweaving in search of form and meaning was our programme. Wanda's broad view of the visual arts became highly important, and she soon curated a project in which art and building interacted in an exemplary way - a new floor in the Great Hall, the first intervention in its traditional form. A clean, even surface of light grey quartz sand was created, which immediately changed the impression of the room, a worthy basis for future events. There was a veritable vernissage for the floor. The director of the Albertinum, Ulrich Bischoff, gave the laudatory speech, followed by cello, bread and wine.

In the following years, Wanda initiated art-based projects, which
were naturally ephemeral. But one remained physically present.
When Nancy Spero, the early icon of feminist New York art, came to HELLERAU in 1998 for
a working visit, Wanda became our host for her and her students for five
summer weeks. As a
thank you, Nancy Spero added subtle frescoes to the traces of time on the
walls in the western side studio. It is thanks to Wanda's persistent
insistence that this small room remained virtually untouched during the later general refurbishment of the
building. It thus also became a witness
to that turbulent decade when the Festspielhaus was refounded.
The Nancy Spero Hall is now Wanda's material legacy.
On a late September day, she did not wake up from what must have been a peaceful sleep.