On Friendship/(Collateral Damage) IV

GERHARD-MARCKS- HAUS, AM WALL 208, Bremen, Germany
April 2022 - February 2023, 3 INTERVENTIONS
Joseph Sassoon Semah: How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist 

The Gerhard-Marcks-Haus is now located in the former Gestapo headquarters, opposite the Gestapo prison. It is the only museum in Germany where a truly critical sound on Beuys can be heard during the festive year with work by Joseph Sassoon Semah. Sassoon Semah has been a regular guest at the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus since 1997. As an Arab Jew, he presents a perspective on the history of modern art that is shaped by his origins. In doing so, he both critiques and complements our thinking. In 2022 and 2023 Gerhardt-Marcks-Haus presented already 2 interventions by Joseph Sassoon Semah. 

Arie Hartog, director Gerhard-Marcks-Haus about the five drawings of Wolf Vostell and Joseph Beuys: "When Sassoon Semah lived in Berlin in the late 1970s, he became interested in how German artists processed the subject of the Holocaust. This led to research into the work of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and Wolf Vostell (1932-1998). Vostell was one of the first artists in Germany to integrate photos of the mass murder into their artwork, while with Beuys it was primarily the 'interpreters' who discovered references to it in his work with fat and felt. Sassoon Semah is also interested in the role-playing of the two artists, for example when Vostell dressed as an Orthodox Jew in order to refer to a culture that had been destroyed in Germany and Europe, or when Beuys showed a Hitler salute, that was then reinterpreted as art. In the group of works shown in the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus Sassoon Semah refers to famous work by these artists and interprets them through this." 

Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Intervention 2, opening 22 July 2022 Joseph Sassoon Semah Courtesy of Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen, Germany, 2022

Drawings and new sculpture Mobius Ring (2021) were shown in the second intervention August-January 2022). In Intervention 3 (later in 2023) a tree will be planted and a stone will be installed.