Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch — The Monument / spomenik

Opening, March 19, 2015, 7 pm
Exhibition, March 20 – May 8, 2015

On the occasion of the artistic intervention by Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch for their exhibition at Kunstraum Lakeside, a filmic document (Robert Schabus) is produced to record the journey of the partisan monument from the museum and memorial site Peršmanhof/Muzej in spominski kraj pri Peršmanu in Bad Eisenkappel near the Austrian-Slovenian border to its original site, a partisan tomb at the St. Ruprecht cemetery in Völkermarkt. With this journey the artists make a clear statement on the culture of remembrance as it is practiced in Austria, an attitude that does not properly acknowledge the partisan resistance, which played an important role in Austrian independence after WWII.

The monument, which was erected in the 1980s to commemorate the Carinthian partisans’ resistance to the Nazi regime, has an eventful and polarizing history. Originally erected in Völkermarkt in 1947, it was blown up and destroyed in 1953. Austria never made it possible to erect it again at the original site. Today it defines the mountain farm at Peršman as a museum and a remembrance site marking a massacre committed by the SS against the Slovenian people shortly before the end of the war. A crime that, after the war, etched itself as a symbol of collective suffering into the memory of the Carinthian-Slovenes.

The work by Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch is defined by the force of self-empowerment, which serves, at least for a brief period of time, to correct a historical and societal situation.

Nicole Six (b. Austria, 1971) and Paul Petritsch (b. Austria, 1968) live and work in Vienna.
www.six-petritsch.com

Curated by Hemma Schmutz.

 

 

Ob umetniški akciji Nicole Six in Paula Petritscha za razstavo v umetniškem prostoru Lakeside je nastal filmski dokument (Robert Schabus), s katerim je bila zabeležena pot partizanskega spomenika od Muzeja in spominskega kraja pri Peršmanu/Gedenkstätte Peršmanhof v obmejni Železni Kapli do njegove prvotne lokacije, partizanskega groba na pokopališču v Št. Rupertu pri Velikovcu. S to potjo umetnik in umetnica dasta viden signal glede ravnanja z »kulturo spominjanja na avstrijski način«, saj tedanji partizanski odpor, ki je po drugi svetovni vojni privedel tudi do osamosvojitve Avstrije, tam ni dovolj cenjen.

Spominsko obeležje odporu koroških partizanov in partizank proti nacionalsocializmu, ki je bilo v 80. letih 20. stoletja ponovno postavljeno, ima burno in polarizirajočo zgodovino. Spomenik je bil leta 1946 prvotno postavljen v Velikovcu, toda leta 1953 je bil razstreljen in uničen. Država ni nikoli omogočila, da bi bil ponovno postavljen na prvotni lokaciji. Danes ta spomenik gorsko kmetijo Peršman opredeljuje kot muzej in kraj spomina na pokol slovenskega prebivalstva, ki so ga malo pred koncem vojne zagrešile enote SS. Ta zločin se je po koncu vojne v spomin koroških Slovencev in Slovenk vtisnil kot simbol kolektivne izkušnje trpljenja.

Umetniška akcija Nicole Six in Paula Petritscha je zaznamovana s trenutkom samoopolnomočenja, ki vsaj za kratek čas predstavlja popravek zgodovinske in družbene situacije.

Nicole Six (*1971, Avstrija) in Paul Petritsch (*1968, Avstrija) živita in ustvarjata na Dunaju.
www.six-petritsch.com

Kuratorka: Hemma Schmutz.