Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin. Wikimedia/Alphamouse. Creative commons.No adjective is more abused in the endorsement of contemporary art than ‘radical’, but this is the rare creation to which the word applies. The Berlin memorial has raised eyebrows from the day of its inauguration in 2005.
Its site houses 2711 concrete rectangles, identical in depth (2.38m) and width (.95m), creating a criss-cross of public walkways. We find a field of nameless, faceless, industrially manufactured coffins – funerary sites for victims who were denied burials because they were denied existence as humans. The blocks also recall the vacuously modernist rank and file of barracks housing inmates systematically worked, beaten, starved, and gassed to death.
The blocks differ in one respect only – in height, ranging from 0.2 to 4.7m. That meek residue of non-conformity allows each slab to heave its own, perpetually futile, gasp of individuality.
