Installation created at BASIS residency, Frankfurt, 2022.
The work RGB is part of the Decomposition series, an ongoing project using various mediums such as video, textile, drawing and felting, in order to transform traumatic imagery of mass graves from world war 2 into tactile, familiar and therapeutic artifacts.
In relation to one another - the yellow and red color constructing the Degesch label along with the blue drawings of the BUSTED series, complete the three prime colors which correspond to Goethe‘s theory of colors. In turn, the chalk drawings and felting methods are present in the heritage of Joseph Beuys and his inspiration by Rudolf Steiner, who was deeply influenced by Goethe.
The felted Degesch label has gone through the process of washing with soap water as a cleaning and erasing process. The text of the label was forgotten and only traces of history were left apparent. The IG Farben factory which produced Zyklon B and was the second home to Josef Mengele, was incorporated and turned into a pedagogic institution rebranded after Goethe.
The BUSTED series juxtaposes the two iconic figures of Goethe and Hitler in a „head to head“ incorporative debate, where erasing one‘s identity forms the ghostly manifestation of the other‘s. The two pop culture heroes vary or even oppose one another, yet within the friction and heat of the lingering moment, they dissolve into each other‘s form, becoming more of the same. The process of deconstructing memory gives rise for a suppressed collective memory to reappear.
Goethe in turn became redundant, deformed, and no longer recognized, turning into a blue and
white phantom. Both figures are busted - as if they are glorified and condemned, depicted as criminals and heroes. Their shared status suggests a new „statue quo“.
“Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again.” - Giorgio Agamben