Leni Peickert

Leni Peickert, portrayed by German actress Hannelore Hoger, is the protagonist of two movies by Alexander Kluge, Artists in the Big Top: Perplexed (1968) and The Indomitable Leni Peickert (1970). Peickert, a young artist and circus director trying to safe her business from bankruptcy, is torn between her radical will for self-realization and the stereotypical role imposed on her by a male-dominated society. Saunders visualizes this inner conflict by printing her counterfeit from two plates, literally splitting her face in half. In 2017 he returned to the character of Leni Peickert and elaborated on the idea of a spilt consciousness for the five large-scale prints Ratlos / Indomitable.