Mysterious advertising pillars in Cologne: That’s behind the gloomy motifs
Advertising pillars with dark motifs cause a stir in Cologne. An important message is hidden behind it, which is intended to remind us of the NSU terror.
Cologne – Who in the past few days through the Cologne Veedel strolled, probably stumbled across them in a figurative sense: the so-called Cologne art columns, which have recently been decorated with conspicuously somber motifs.
A total of 25 advertising pillars can be found scattered throughout the city and have not been showing advertising for around three and a half years now, but changing art prints.
In the months of February and March, the circular posters are particularly eye-catching. A large rectangle of piercing black is depicted on a white background.
Only in a few places are there gaps in the dark ink and individual words can be made out.
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On the opposite side of the column, a number of these small black areas line up symmetrically one above the other – also broken up by a few white spots.
But what seems so simple at first glance harbors a deeper message that is intended to shake things up.
The work was created by the Hamburg artist Katharina Kohl (born 1956) and is entitled “The Memory Gap #12”. The dark areas are files that were quickly blackened out completely.
They come from the minutes of the NSU investigative committee of the German Bundestag. The National Socialist terrorist cell had been able to operate underground, i.e. “in the dark”, for far too long.
And even after their discovery, much remains unclear. Gaps in memory open up where the committee of inquiry should actually bring clarity.
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Absolute blackness instead of bright knowledge and even the passages in the log, which are white and legible, contribute nothing to the enlightenment. At one point there is the sentence “No, as far as I know, we didn’t know anything”.
According to the artist Kohl, even the bright lines “do not bring any light into the darkness”. On the contrary: “They show absolute blackness, emptiness, played or honest, it makes no difference.”
The advertising pillars are intended to raise awareness of “how little the will to remember among representatives of the security authorities [an die Gräueltaten des NSU und deren (Nicht-) Aufdeckung] War”.
Anyone who would like to visit the art columns themselves will find one List of all locations on the website of the city of Cologne.