Article published in the “Rheinzeitung” on 15 March 2006

Municipal Authorities of Pulheim have suspended Synagogue project

Pulheim.
Next week the Municipal Authorities of Pulheim will decide about the future of the heavily criticised art project in which the Spanish artist Santiago Sierra (39) had directed mortal waste gas from several cars into a former synagogue.
A spokesman of the municipality announced, that the internationally known action artist will be prepared to answer the questions of his critics, in a discussion beforehand.
After massive criticism, expressed in particular by the Central Council of Jews, the city of Pulheim has suspended the project for the moment. Contrary to original plans, the former Jewish synagogue will remain closed next Sunday.
The International Auschwitz Committee, in an Open Letter to the Mayor of Pulheim appreciated the suspension of this action which the camp survivors have considered “brutal and heartless”.
“ We hope that the suspension of the spectacle will be definite” wrote the Vice-President of the IAC in his letter. In view of this “egocentric and weird action” of the Spanish artist he asked the question, what would have be the reaction of the municipal authorities, if Mr. Sierra had poisoned the councillors’ meeting room of the Town Hall with waste gas “as an action to remind of the fact that the exclusion, persecution and deportation of local German Jewish families to the extermination camps was organized in German town halls.”
The Central Council of Jews, too, had criticised the action as ridiculing the victims.
The Municipality will not be present at the meeting between the artist and the members of the Jewish Community. “After this meeting we will decide how we will go on”, the spokesman said. Sierra believes that he will succeed in convincing his critics of the seriousness of his project. “Nothing was further from our thoughts than violating the feelings of NS victims and their families”, the spokesman underlined.
On Sunday, the 39 year old Spaniard had directed the waste gas of six cars into the former synagogue of Pulheim-Stommeln, as an action to draw the attention of the public to the “trivialization of holocaust remembrance” which in his opinion is reigning.
Visitors were invited to enter the synagogue with gasmasks. The action was planned to be repeated every Sunday until the end of April.

Another provocative artist, the well-known producer Christoph Schlingensief (45) expressed his disapproval of the action which he considered to be too banal.
“ Even to a provocative person like me this is too flat”, Schlingensief said in an interview for the “Kölner Stadtanzeiger”. He recommended the artist to place his cars in front of the German Reichstag and direct the gas into the house of parliament. Then the politicians could voice their anger with gasmasks.

The publicist Henryk Broder, in the same newspaper, called Sierra’s action a gigantesque lack of taste. He criticised a “crazy fixation” on Jews: “In this country, the optimum provocation is to kill a Jew or to give the impression of preventing the killing of a Jew. This is completely psychotic.”

The author Ralph Giordano from Cologne (“Die Bertinis”) had criticised the synagogue action already on Monday as the “height of vileness”. If Sierra had only the slightest sensitivity with regard to the world of the victims he would have abstained from his sorry effort”, the holocaust survivor said.
15 March 2006.

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