On Monday, April 9, at 19:30, artist Horst Hoheisel will lecture at the Israeli Center for Digital Art as part of the Neo-Monumental exhibition and in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Israel.
Hoheisel will speak about his works, which are considered the most exceptional, consistent, intelligent and exciting monuments of the Nazi period.
Born in 1944, Hoheisel began developing joint projects with Andreas Knitz in 1995. For more than 20 years, Hoheisel has been struggling against nationalism using artistic means, developing and implementing new forms of memorizing together with Knitz. These forms have one international acclaim as “negative memorials” or “counter-monuments”.
Hoheisel believes that those who visit monuments are not passive but rather active, coping individuals. Therefore, his works are always contextualized in space, they are maximally tangible and related to the place, and approach the topic unconventionally. For example, the visitors to a monument planned by Hoheisel for the roll-call square (Appellplatz) at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp encounter a memorial plaque that is heated to the human body temperature (37 degrees) in all seasons only when they bend to touch it.
Overall, the experience is physical: Hoheisel has destroyed the former Gestapo prison and crushed what was left of it. He dispersed the remains of the destroyed buildings and now they serve as a kind of installation that can be stepped over. The visitor becomes a partner by taking part in the realization of the monument.
Similarly, when visitors stand on the reverse pyramid in Kassel, a reminder of the original fountain that had a pyramid in its center, which had been built by a wealthy Jewish industrialist on the very same spot, they become monuments themselves, in a way. “The true monument is actually that person who treads on the compound, wondering why something has gone missing here”, says the artist.
The documentary exhibition Crushed History, on display from April 10 at the Goethe-Institut in Tel Aviv, reviews Hoheisel’s most important works and highlights the central role of memories in public space.
The lecture will be in English.
The Neo-Monumental exhibition will be open to the public from 18:00 on the day of the lecture.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
