“Mobile prayer house” against anti-Semitism in Innsbruck damaged
The installation opened on the Innsbruck Landestheater forecourt on the anniversary of the pogrom night was damaged. For now there is no evidence of an anti-Semitic background.
The back door to the “Mobile Prayer House” was broken into.
© Thomas Böhm
Innsbruck – It wasn’t until the anniversary of the 1938 pogrom night that the “Mobile Prayer House”, a temporary installation by the two artists Luis Rivera and Oskar Stocker, opened on the Innsbruck State Theater forecourt. On Thursday night, strangers took possession of the work of art.
The central artistic element inside was damaged.
© Thomas Böhm
The “house of prayer” (to be seen until November 26th) is a walk-in installation with the floor plan of a Star of David. It was designed as an artistic statement against anti-Semitism and was initially located on the main square in Graz.
While monitors on the outside of the pavilion remind, among other things, of the names of all 106 Innsbruck Jews attacked in the pogrom night, the interior is intended to invite silence or prayer. The central element is a column with a “mirror capital” – according to the artists, an offer for “self-reflection” to the visitors.
Exactly this element, only recognizable at second glance, was damaged on Thursday night. Stefan Gritsch, secretary of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) for Tyrol and Vorarlberg, noticed the damage: The door at the rear entrance of the pavilion had been broken open and then the filigree columns on which the mirror element rests had been bent and twisted so that it was no longer stand stable. “They have to be dismantled and rewelded,” explains Gritsch, who has filed a complaint with the police.
As soon as further damage appears to have occurred in the immediate vicinity, one can “hope and assume” that it is most likely not an act with an anti-Semitic background, says IKG President Günter Lieder. In any case, there was an immediate reaction, among others, Für Innsbruck, SPÖ and Greens condemned the act of vandalism in broadcasts. Local councils also met on site. For Lieder dies dies shows that there is fortunately “a high degree of sensitivity” in Innsbruck. (md)