A European project by
Beate Passow and Andreas von Weizsäcker
Photographs by Laurenz Berges 18 May - 27 June 1995 / Photo Gallery
For quite a long time, Beate Passow and Andreas von Weizsäcker have devoted themselves to a European "Archeology of the 20th century". In their research for Wounds of Memory they tried to find visible testimonies of World War II in order to prevent them from being destroyed by renovation or re-allocation and consolidation of the open land, and to declare them as monuments. Traces of the war can be found all over Europe: e.g. books which were shot through, found in a town archive in the Czech Republic, bullet holes in a railway bridge in the Netherlands, or bomb fragments in trees in Belgium.
The artists are not interested in magnificent monuments. By fixing security glass in front of the bullet holes with the sandblasted headline "Wounds of Memory" in the given national language, they rather try to show that the war destroyed apartments and homes, the occupants and their lives. After declaring the site as a memorial, it was documented photographically.
The German Historical Museum shows 32 colored photographs in its Photo Gallery. A 144-page catalog, published by the "Institut für Moderne Kunst" in Nuremberg, is available for the price of DM 32,- in the entrance hall (sold out).
