unfired clay
Revaluation – Künstlerhaus am Anscharpark, Kiel (2016)
Overlooking the city of Hamburg is a giant, somewhat neglected granite monument of Otto van Bismarck. The first Reichskansler, who played a funding role in the unification of Germany, is immortalised in full armour, his hands resting on the hilt of a large sword standing on its tip in front of him; two eagles are standing at his feet. Nationalism, Prussian militarism, German expansion… they will never be regarded in the same way after everything that happened since the monument’s completion in 1906.
I took the monument as inspiration for a self-portrait in unfired clay. As in #15 Belle et Sebastien, visitors of the exhibition shoot paper darts at the statue, that slowly crumbles from dehydration. Both the statue and the way we deal with the past are subjected to revaluation.
- 1.6 K
