Monument (installation)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The installation in Dresden. (September 2014)

Monument is the name of an installation by the Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni . It is represented by three upright buses. The historical model was a barricade as it served as a protective shield against snipers in Aleppo during the civil war in Syria . The March 2015 photograph of this barricade became known around the world as one of the symbols of the humanitarian catastrophe of the Syrian Civil War . From the beginning of February to April 2017 the installation stood on the Dresden Neumarkt in front of the Dresden Frauenkirche , after which it came from November 2017 in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin .

plant

Already in 2015 Halbouni published a series of photo collages , in which the three buses of the original photo in photos of famous places, such as the Red Square in Moscow , mounted were. He applied with this project to the Peace Museum Erlauf , which organizes annually changing open-air exhibitions. The project was rejected by the Erlauf municipal council in 2016. The installation Monument , realized in Dresden, is part of the cultural festival “Am Fluss / At The River - art, theater, performances, concerts, discussions, workshops on cultures of arrival along the Elbe”. The festival was a joint initiative of the Kunsthaus Dresden and the Societaetstheater Dresden and was intended as a counterpoint to Pegida from the start .

As part of the annual commemoration, the sculpture was intended to create a connection between Dresden , which was heavily destroyed by the Allies in the Second World War, and the currently heavily destroyed city of Aleppo. The monument consists of three upright buses. These are decommissioned buses from the Nuremberg public transport company . Two double T-beams were welded to the rear of the buses and anchored in them. A concrete foundation was poured onto which the buses are screwed. The costs in Dresden were 57,000 euros. They were financed by the city of Dresden (15,000 euros), several foundations, the Ostsächsische Sparkasse and private individuals. The final decision on the installation was made by the art commission of the city of Dresden.

With this sculpture, the organizers wanted to set a “symbol for peace, freedom and humanity”. It should be a memorial for the humanitarian catastrophes caused by wars, which consciously builds a bridge between the destruction of Dresden in the Second World War and the destruction of Aleppo in the Syrian civil war today.

In November 2017 the installation was set up in Berlin on March 18th in front of the Brandenburg Gate . It was there from November 10th to 26th.

  • Halbouni on the opening day

  • Barriers shortly after construction

  • Monument Installation in Berlin, Nov. 2017

  • Details

  • In front of the Brandenburg Gate

  • Dismantling November 2017

Opening in Dresden

Mayor Dirk Hilbert during his opening speech, an exemplary protest speaking choir during the opening

When the installation was inaugurated on February 7, 2017, there were violent protests and disruptions by people from the Pegida area. The MDR only spoke of 60, a reporter for the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten counted up to 300 and the weekly newspaper Die Zeit 400 opponents. They disrupted the opening with whistles, megaphones, boos and slogans such as "Skin off" or "Shame". The video documentation of the DNN shows how “ traitor to the people ” or “Hilbert must go” was chanted several times ; The "knocking over" of the buses that had been set up was also repeatedly demanded loudly. A photographer who was present was so harassed by the demonstrators that the police had to intervene. "Memories of the protests of October 3rd were awakened, also because a large number of the troublemakers were obviously the same people," wrote the DNN.

The memorial was inaugurated by Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, director of the Kunsthaus Dresden, Sebastian Feydt, pastor of the Frauenkirche , Dresden's Mayor Dirk Hilbert and Manaf Halbouni. Manaf Halbouni said to the demonstrators: “You want to fight all the time for your rights or for occidental, Christian values. Shame on yourselves because you don't do it. You didn't even allow the pastor to speak. Everyone can say their opinion here. Also you. But you do it with culture and you say it ethically. "

Busses and the surrounding area, early February

Due to the protests, the installation was initially guarded by the police around the clock. From February 14, 2017, a private security guard took over the night watch, while the police were on patrol on Neumarkt during the day.

Protests against the artwork

Critics, many of whom came from the Pegida movement, considered the installation to be trivializing the victims in Dresden. They claimed that the situation in Syria was not as bad and that it was therefore not justified for Syrians to flee to Germany. In social networks like Facebook people spoke out against the sculpture and Manaf Halbouni was attacked directly on his Facebook page. In the media of the New Right there was polemic against the memorial and mobilized for protest. Pegida vice spokesman Siegfried Däbritz called on Pegida demonstrators to go to the inauguration of the installation. Pegida initiator Lutz Bachmann announced a lawsuit against the installation on Facebook because it glorified terrorism. The protests are supported by the Saxon AfD .

Just one day after the opening, Halbouni was publicly accused of being close to Islamism , as the original barricade had been erected by the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham Brigade, which can be proven by a flag on the original photos. Halbouni distanced himself from the brigade and from any political current in Syria. The relation to the al-Sham-Brigade was not known to him so far. That does not change the intended message of his work of art: The sculpture with the three vertical buses is reminiscent of the Syrian civil war. Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, the director of the Kunsthaus Dresden emphasized that Halbouni's work should not depict the complex situation of the civil war, but should primarily serve as a memorial against violence - also by terrorists.

A citizen of Dresden failed on February 15, 2017 before the Dresden Administrative Court with his application for the monument to be removed immediately . He took the view that the list with regard to the memory of the victims of February 13, 1945 was "inappropriate and disrespectful" and a deliberate provocation. The court ruled, among other things, that “there is no legal provision that protects the interests of a viewer of a work of art, that it does not arouse any offensive evaluation” and referred to artistic freedom .

On the morning of 20 February 2017 attached members in parts nationalist identitary movement to have been camouflaged, commissioned as an employee of a non-existent construction company under the pretext of the city with cleaning tasks, a banner and a banner with an inscription that graphically Arabic script modeled was on. At lunchtime, employees of the central technical services of the city of Dresden removed the banner and flag again. Other pieces of paper with expressions of opinion that had accumulated at the base of the installation over the course of the previous days were also removed. The artist Manaf Halbouni called the action “poor and sad”. Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz said it was "shameful" that the IB was not able to create its own platform for its opinion and therefore had to instrumentalize art.

reception

Doreen Reinhard wrote about Halbouni and his installation in the ZEIT : “In his artistic adaptation he draws connections to Dresden civilians, who in 1945 also had to protect themselves from attacks. In this respect, his monument is also a memorial to Dresden's bomb victims . "

The Frauenkirche Dresden Foundation welcomed the installation as a sign of the reminder of the suffering of those affected by war and destruction in Syria and around the world. It is an impulse to firmly believe in a new beginning.

The events in Syria "also influenced our lives - whether we want it or not," said Dresden's Mayor Dirk Hilbert at the opening. In the run-up to the commemorative events on February 13, he warned of a “victim myth” in Dresden. Especially in times of increasing populism - "not only in our city, but in the entire western world" his city wants to set accents on February 13th.

In Telepolis , journalist Peter Nowak criticized the fact that völkisch-nationalist circles around Pegida had long dominated the debate about the installation. In terms of content, Nowak criticized that the artist had not only raised the demand for peace, but also drew the image of the innocently destroyed and now reborn city without any necessary political classification. Halbouni serves “also a Dresden myth. It is no longer about political forces and the question of who was defending what here. What is the symbolic message of a barricade defended by Islamists against a repressive secular government? Isn't such an ignorance of political issues very similar to the German excuse that they remained loyal to the Nazis until the last minute because they had to defend themselves against the Allies? ”Unfortunately, differentiated discussions about the installation would hardly be conducted,“ because the right-wing supporters of a German-ethnic Dresden memorial have shaped the debate. "

The Saxon AfD member of the state parliament, Karin Wilke , said that the installation was evidently intended to deliberately dup the people of Dresden, "in order to bring the Pegida movement onto the barricades".

On the occasion of the installation in Berlin, the journalist Tobias Riegel criticized the New Germany for not being an “anti-war sculpture”, but a memorial for the fighters of the Al-Nusra Front who left the Syrian city of Aleppo until it was liberated The Russian and Syrian armies were held hostage for their western-sponsored overthrow fantasies.

Web links

Commons : “Monument” by Manaf Halbouni  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See How Syrians Are Protecting Themselves From Snipers. In: time.com. Retrieved February 8, 2017 .
  2. ↑ project page. Artist's website, accessed March 1, 2017.
  3. ↑ Interview with Manaf Halbouni. ( Memento of the original from March 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: art–magazin.de , accessed on March 1, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.art-magazin.de
  4. ↑ project page. Website of the Kunsthaus Dresden, accessed on March 1, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b Controversial art installation in front of the Frauenkirche. In: sonntag-sachsen.de. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Report from Deutschlandfunk dated September 15, 2017, accessed on March 1, 2017.
  7. ↑ a b Art campaign in Dresden - wrecked buses remind of destroyed Aleppo. In: Deutschlandfunk. Retrieved February 8, 2017 .
  8. ^ Peaceful discussion about the Busse memorial. In: Saxon newspaper. February 17, 2016, accessed February 17, 2016 .
  9. ↑ CDU calls for city council to be involved in issues such as monument. In: dnn-online , March 2, 2017, accessed March 2, 2017.
  10. ^ Dresden: exhibitions. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 11, 2017 ; accessed on February 8, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / 13februar.dresden.de
  11. ↑ Aleppo buses set up in front of the Brandenburg Gate. In: rbb24.de.
  12. ↑ a b Opponents disturb the inauguration of "Monument" in Dresden. (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017 ; accessed on February 8, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mdr.de
  13. ^ Right-wing mob against the Aleppo art project. In: tagesspiegel.de. Retrieved February 8, 2017 .
  14. ^ A b Doreen Reinhard: Dresden: tumultuous grief work . In: The time . February 8, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed February 8, 2017]).
  15. ↑ Pegida supporters disturb “Monument” opening on Dresden's Neumarkt. In: DNN-Online. Retrieved February 8, 2017 .
  16. ^ Debate about art in public space. (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. Archived from the original on February 12, 2017 ; accessed on February 12, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mdr.de
  17. ↑ Why the Identitarians don't have to fear punishment. In: Sächsische Zeitung online , accessed on February 21, 2017.
  18. ↑ Dresden's bitter divide over Aleppo-inspired bus barricade sculpture at theguardian.com, accessed on November 12, 2017.
  19. ^ Felix Langhammer, Axel Gebauer: AfD railers against Dresden Aleppo artwork . ( neue-deutschland.de [accessed on February 9, 2017]).
  20. ^ Dresden AfD wants to demolish monument. In: dnn-online , March 1, 2017, accessed March 2, 2017.
  21. ↑ What role did Islamists play in the Syrian example of the Neumarkt buses? In: Leipziger Volkszeitung online , accessed on March 1, 2017.
  22. ↑ The dispute over Aleppo artwork continues. In: mdr.de. Retrieved February 10, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Who built the Aleppo roadblock? In: sz-online. Retrieved February 8, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Press release of the Dresden Administrative Court. ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: justiz.sachsen.de , accessed on February 21, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.justiz.sachsen.de
  25. ↑ City checks complaint about bus banner. In: sz-online.de , accessed on February 28, 2017.
  26. ↑ Identitarians hoist banners at the Dresden “Monument”. In: DNN-Online. Retrieved February 21, 2017 .
  27. ↑ Right-wing extremists abuse artwork. In: Sächsische Zeitung online , accessed on February 21, 2017.
  28. ↑ "Identitarian Movement": Outrage over the action of right-wing extremists at the bus "Monument". In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved February 21, 2017 .
  29. ^ Felix Langhammer, Axel Gebauer: AfD railers against Dresden Aleppo artwork. In: neue-deutschland.de. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  30. ↑ Peter Nowak: Dresden victim myth meets installation by a Syrian artist. In: heise.de. Retrieved February 12, 2017 .
  31. ↑ Michael Bartsch: Resistance against Dresden memorial: No sympathy for Aleppo. In: the daily newspaper. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  32. ↑ Tobias Riegel: Memorial for the hostage takers. In: neue-deutschland.de. Retrieved November 11, 2017 .