Grosse Strasse

Grosse Strasse

Installation at the „Grosse Strasse“ of the former „Reichs­parteitagsgelaende“ in Nuremberg (2001)

Concept, 50 straw bales, speakers

Large round straw bales are arranged on the „Grosse Strasse“ of the former „Reichs­parteitagsgelaende“ in Nuremberg as they would appear on a harvested field. The visual impression, reminiscent of a rural idyll, is intensified by the cackle of hens emitted from loud speakers. (In the mythologies of various cultures the hen is an omen of death and ruin.)

On the one hand, the simulation of a rural idyll refers to the old longing for homeland, for being rooted in the earth. On the other hand, it evokes an ideal, which was a central element of the nazi politics of expansion, which instrumentalised the longing for space to motivate a war of aggression.