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Hamburg Germany |
Dreieinigkeitskirche St. Georg, vor dem Hauptportal | Names and Stones - Wind Rose II |
since 1 December 1994 unknown |
In 1994, several cultural institutions in Hamburg decided to bring the project "Names and Stones" of the German AIDS Foundation to their city. Shortly before World AIDS Day on 1st December, the artist Tom Fecht let about 50 stones into the sidewalk in Hamburg's district St. Georg. Cross-shaped and along the cardinal directions, the name stones are placed in front of the bell tower of the Dreieinigkeitskirche (Trinity Church). Unmarked stones and stones with a '+' sign are fit in as well as a stone with the word 'MIND SPACE'. A headstone with the inscription "Mémoire nomade/ NAMES and STONES/ Hamburg 1994" marks the intersection of the axis of the cross. Previously, the stones were presented as "Nature Morte", as still life, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
Fecht understands his whole installation as a "nomadic memory", a "mobile memorial that leads a nomadic life up to change of the millennium." It's about time and about "early death, spurred by a deadly progression." As the lives of those immortalized in it, but also of all other people, his work is of limited duration. Moreover, the German word for road surface in the etymological sense also refers to 'wound plaster'. The names on the stones are striking, next to local names they also show internationally known names such as the pop singer Freddie Mercury.
In Hamburg, Tom Fecht placed the stones in front of a church and created a formal relation to the church outline. This relation is, however, ambivalent. He is not offering himself to the church, but as the church itself wants to open up a mind space, which is about life and death. "Behind all this, secularization hides and the end of the monopoly of the Churches in dealing with death" Fecht resumes his work in the sacral environment “but also an understanding of my own temporary nature."
AIDS-Seelsorge Hamburg
Fecht understands his whole installation as a "nomadic memory", a "mobile memorial that leads a nomadic life up to change of the millennium." It's about time and about "early death, spurred by a deadly progression." As the lives of those immortalized in it, but also of all other people, his work is of limited duration. Moreover, the German word for road surface in the etymological sense also refers to 'wound plaster'. The names on the stones are striking, next to local names they also show internationally known names such as the pop singer Freddie Mercury.
In Hamburg, Tom Fecht placed the stones in front of a church and created a formal relation to the church outline. This relation is, however, ambivalent. He is not offering himself to the church, but as the church itself wants to open up a mind space, which is about life and death. "Behind all this, secularization hides and the end of the monopoly of the Churches in dealing with death" Fecht resumes his work in the sacral environment “but also an understanding of my own temporary nature."
AIDS-Seelsorge Hamburg
