Daniel Libeskind, Military History Museum Dresden. | Thomas Bachler Monumento a los Caídos, Pamplona | Horst Hoheisel
In Berlin, politicians have also demolished the Palace short light of the present and free myself from the
of the Republic and rebuilt a backdrop of the old city darkness. However, the past still holds me captive.
castle. The “imperial past” is to make us forget the Each generation recreates its own past from its
site of the “communist past”. Daniel Libeskind’s present. The past is an endless stratification of many
extension to the Military History Museum in Dresden different images. We only retrieve those that fit with
is a good example of how a historical site can be our present. Such is the case with memorials too.
broken up in a contemporary manner. They always say more about us and our time, our
To conclude, some experiences that I have
accumulated during my more than thirty
years of work on art and remembrance. art and style than exposing the past. This is gone
and all the images that we make of the past and
form into monuments no longer reach it. Everything
that I as an artist do regarding monuments is
I was born in 1944 and grew up under the “long incorrect. I simply have the chance to do it more or
shadow of the past” with the profound silence of less incorrectly. Would the right thing thus be to no
our parents. Through the medium of art, I prised longer make any monuments?
open the family silence. My work more and more
powerfully developed from commemorating the
victims to confronting the perpetrators. This is
the German legacy. Through my work, I hope to
emerge from the long shadow of the past into the
References
(1) Aleida Assmann, Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit, Erinnerungskultur und
Geschichtspolitik, C.H.Beck, 2006
(2) James E. Young, Negative Orte und das Spiel mit dem Denkmal, in: Vergangen ? Spurensuche
und Erinnerungsarbeit – Das Denkmal der Grauen Busse. Publisher: Psychiatrie und Geschichte,
ZfP Südwürttemberg, 2017
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