Am Hegeplatz

This work is part of a series of wall prints I am making on the city of Berlin. Am Hegelplatz shows the traces of bullet holes from World War II. What interests me in this kind of graphic work is the contradiction between a "nice" pattern which recalls a lace texture and the reality of the war, the horror becomes harmless, it is integrated in everyday life. In Berlin, the majority of walls which testify the War have been restored. I see in these walls a kind of living memorials, a discrete presence of the past within the present time. These traces are often ignored in the course of everyday routines like drinking coffee or walking in the street but they bear inscriptions of history like the Art historian George Kubler put it in his essay "The Shape of Time":

The triptych is separated with wood frames from an oak tree, this tree is a symbol for the German soil, which is represented on the back side of the German Euro-Cent by an oak leaf. Thus, the frame of this Triptych is visually and symbolically part of the image. "Am Hegelplatz" plays with the tautology in the title and the contradiction of destruction and steadiness, the traces of the World War II and the idealized material and geometrical solidity of the oak frame.