Crushed History - Zermahlene Geschichte [Weimar 1997 – 2003]
 

Throwing Back the CRUSHED HISTORY

 

Crushed History – Zermahlene Geschichte [Weimar 1997 – 2003]

Marstall of Weimar. Today, the Governmental Archives of Thuringia [Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv] are housed there, and a modern archive was built within the restored shell of the building. In order to facilitate the construction of the storage cellar under the Marstall courtyard, two buildings dating from the Nazi period that were under a preservation order had to be demolished: a former Gestapo administrative barracks and a temporary Gestapo prison in an old carriage shed. Both buildings continued to be used by the Soviet Ministry of the Interior until 1950. A work of art commemorates the demolished buildings and form a reminder of the crimes of history committed in them. Design: The demolition of the Gestapo barracks and the prison building was made public. The buildings were crushed in a crushing mill to wood chips and masonry granulates.
During the whole of the construction period, this material was stored temporarily in two containers placed in front of the Marstall building. The containers bear photos of the barracks and the prison, like labels, together with a statement of their contents written by the archive’s two directors:

Crushed History 1936 – 1997 [Barracks], 1875 – 1997 [Prison]

Almost exactly the same day five years after the demolition of the buildings [November 9th 2002], when construction work of the new archive was finished, we threw back the crushed history material, the crushed prison and the wood chips of the Gestapo barracks over the courtyard of the Governmental Archives of Thuringia [marking the shredded buildings]. The plans of both buildings are made visible as stippled contours in the courtyard, and a vertical focus into the storage cellar of the Governmental Archives [finished in 2002] was created by means of appropriately placed plate-glass slits. By no means a conventional memorial, but certainly one that will invite the viewer to engage actively in an act of remembrance by pointing in silent admonition to the documents of the archives: Goethe’s ministerial correspondence lying cheek to cheek with Bauhaus files and the Buchenwald card index system.

The Crushed History will be crushed on under the steps of the staff, visitors and users of the archive.

Horst Hoheisel and Andreas Knitz

Throwing Back the CRUSHED HISTORY


 

Katalog
 

Zermahlene Geschichte – Kunst als Umweg
Projekte von Horst Hoheisel und Andreas Knitz
 

Inhalt/Themen [u.a.]: Schreddern der Gebäude im Marstall-Innenhof;
Wärmeplatte in Buchenwald; Aschrottbrunnen in Kassel; Denksteinsammlung Kassel;
Die Tore der Deutschen – Lichtinstallation Auschwitz-Tor auf Brandenburger Tor;
»Deutsche Boden« - Deutsche Böden. 168 Seiten, mit einem Vorwort des
thüringischen Ministerpräsidenten Bernhard Vogel und mit Texten von
Norma Drimmer, Volkhard Knigge, Bernhard Post, Manfred Schneckenburger,
Dirk Schwarze, Eva Schulz-Jander, Yehudit Shendar, Jochen Spielmann, Volker Wahl,
James E. Young. 230 Abb. [S/W, Farbe] Auflage 1000 Stück, handgestempelt,
numeriert und signiert. [ISBN 3-00-004816-2]
Schriften des Thüringischen Hauptstaatsarchivs, Weimar 1999

MULTIPLE Asservatenbeutel mit eingeschweißtem Mauerwerksgranulat und
Holzschnitzeln der GESTAPO-Gebäude, Unterschriftenmappe mit Fotos und
Dokumenten in einer Archivschachtel. Dokumente und Fotos über den noch
laufenden Kunst-Prozess werden den Erwerbern des Multiple
von den Künstlern zur Archivierung in der Unterschriftenmappe zugeschickt.
Auflage 1000 Stück, numeriert und signiert [39x29x11cm].
 

KATALOG bestellen / Order Catalogue