Performance @ Auditorium Maestre Pie Filippini, Rome – On the Occasion of the Commemoration of the Deportation of the Roman Jews on October 16, 1943
The performance consisted of three parts and lasted thirty minutes. At its very core is the adiministrative act of the 9th November, 1938 Reichspogromnacht in Nazi Germany. The documents dirive from the artist’s hometown and were photographed and printed by the artist. They are not only witnesses to the crimes of that night, but also document how the Nazi state of Germany tried to legalize them during the following twelve months. Italian historians and other academics, survivors of the Shoa and their family members, artists and other interested people, in total about eighty persons attended the commemoration.
Introductory Speech of Artist
Part I
The photos of the administrative files were unfolded by the artist one by one in the form of a roll directly in front of the seated audiance. The artist called them up simultaneously according to their content – “order”, “list”, “law”, “command”, “decree”, “memo”, “request” – until all one hundred and five pages were placed on the floor and near to the feet of the audiance. At the same time, a video projection of the identical documents ran in the background.
Part II
The artist remained standing in the middle of the documents on the floor while the video continued in the background. It shows how the order of the documents is suddenly disrupted. Someone walks carelessly through them.
