Ersatzmonument

Sebastian Acker, Magdalena Fabianczyk, Elisabeth Rosenthal
2012
Mixed media installation.
Found objects, styrofoam, wood, paint. Video projection with sound (09’13”, looped).

Ersatzmonument is a site specific installation at C. Rockefeller Center for the Contemporary Arts in Dresden, Germany. A fake sandstone rock, crafted from styrofoam and painstakingly painted, balances on one side of an industrial rack which is suspended from the ceiling. The other side holds a sheet of the same material which serves as a projection screen: the video slowly pans along a never-ending sandstone facade, only occasionally revealing it was recording a printed banner which was wrapped around Dresdens famous Zwinger during its renovation.

Sandstone is the vernacular building material in Dresden and was extensively used for the construction of historic buildings. Its contemporary use for reconstructed or historicising facades is widely regarded as an act of bringing back parts of the city which have been lost in the second world war. The material itself became associated with a nostalgic longing for a lost past.

Ersatzmonument, 2012, Installation view

Ersatzmonument, 2012, video still

Ersatzmonument, 2012, Installation view

Ersatzmonument, 2012, Installation view detail