2146 Stones – Monument against Racism / The Invisible Monument
2146 Steine – Mahnmal gegen Rassismus / Das unsichtbare Mahnmal
2146 Pierres – Monument contre le Racisme / Le Monument Invisible
CR 105. Year 1993
He chose cemeteries rather than synagogues for his project because in the Jewish religion they are something indisoluble and indestructible - the continuity of life itself. Their gravestones are sacrosanct, or at least should be.
Barbara von Jhering 1992
It is the discourses of such notions of responsibility, of whose convenience they serve and of what it is that they ultimately mask and contain, which are our dilemma and it is their problematising as it expands out of the work of Jochen Gerz and his collaborators which I would like to engage with. These discourses entail questions regarding historical practice, responsibility, memory, testimony and commemoration which are linked to certain moralizing positions all of which claim that to produce some concrete manifestation that marks loss, even in a negative form, is the appropriate response.
Irit Rogoff 1993
This ... project – which escapes from sense perception and can only be discovered through the ‘magical’ relationship between of the site to all the former sites of Jewish life before 1933 – necessarily came up against criticism in the beginning when it was brought to public attention in Saarbrücken. Not that there was fundamental rejection of such a memorial, but the ‘non-visibility’ and the illegal way in which the artist has worked were heartily critized in public opinion and in the city council parliament. It was only after a highly emotional debate that it was finally decided to support the project financially.
Lieselotte Kugler 1993. Translated by e_CR editors
I stand by this monument, at this place close to the border. We are not free to choose our own history. If we do not adopt it critically ourselves, others will critically remind us of it.
Oskar Lafontaine 1993. Translated by e_CR editors
Der Schloßplatz dient dem Markt genauso wie dem Fest, dem Feilschen wie dem Tanzen, dem Feiertag wie dem Alltag. So wird dieses Mahnmal unerträglich, weil seine Bestandteile nicht identifizierbar sind - welche Steine sollte die beflissene Pietät des Fußgängers meiden? Durch seine Diskretion stellt dieses unsichtbare Mahnmal eine skandalöse Verbindung von Alltag und Gedenken her, die alle anderen Mahnmale kappen. Es ist eigentlich nur ein vandalensicheres Gerücht, aber dem Passanten kann es unter den Sohlen brennen.
Walter Grasskamp 1994
As visitors flocked to the square…, they too began to wonder "where they stood" vis-a-vis the memorial stones: Were they standing on it? In it? Was it really there at all? On searching for memory, Gerz hoped, they would realise that such memory was already in them.
James E. Young 1994
Le monument de Sarrebruck, ce n'est pas un mémorial du souvenir mais un mémorial aux trous de mémoire, un mémorial de l'oubli, de la perte, de l'absence, autant de fait actuels - comme le souvenir, l'oubli est un acte contemporain. Ce n'est pas un fait du passé que rappelle le Monument invisible : c'est l'effacement, toujours au présent, ce fait qu'il ne reste aujourd'hui ni trace matérielle, nulle part, ni aucune mémoire de cette vie juive qui existait dans l'Allemagne d'avant 33 dans, au moins, 2146 communautés (…).
Gérard Wajcman 1998
Gerz has described invisiblility as both intellectual challenge and as a protective measure; what is unseen cannot be defaced.
Ed. Invisible: Art about the Unseen 1957-2012. 2012
Categories
Keywords
Work in public space
(with students from the Hochschule der Künste Saar, Saarbrücken: Martin Blanke, Christian H. Cordes, Yvonne de Grazia, Jens Freitag, Daniel Funke, Beate Miller, Gabi Raddau, Isabel Reichert)
2146 engraved paving stones
Location: Platz des unsichtbaren Mahnmals, Saarbrücken
With the help of the 61 Jewish communities in Germany, a list of all 2146 Jewish cemeteries in existence before the outbreak of World War II is compiled. The names of the cemeteries are engraved on the undersides of an equal number of paving stones (of a total of 8000 stones) on the avenue in front of the Schloß in Saarbrücken, the seat of the municipal parliament and the Gauleitung [regional government administration under the National Socialist regime]. The project is illegal. It is uncommissioned and is not approved by parliamentary vote until after work has commenced. The Schloßplatz in Saarbrücken is renamed Platz des unsichtbaren Mahnmals (Square of The Invisible Monument).
Landeshauptstadt Saarbrücken.
Realisation
Platz des unsichtbaren Mahnmals, Saarbrücken 1990 - 1993
Documentation
Photographs, wall graphics of the Jewish cemetaries in Germany, list of the cemetary names scrolled on a computer screen. Historisches Museum Saar 2023: 30 Jahre Platz des Unsichtbaren Mahnmals
Exhibitions of the documentation
New York 1993 (Berlin 1994. München 1994 u.a.O./a.o.p. 1995). Vancouver 1994 (Newport Beach 1995. Purchase 1996. Winnipeg 1996/97). Tel Aviv 1995. Périgueux 1996. Bolzano 1999. London 2012. Heidelberg 2021, Saarbrücken 2023. Lyons 2023-2024
Bibliography
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IV: Nuremberg 2018, Saarbrücken 2023
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