bavarikon4UMahnmal der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Mauthausen/Österreich, ehem. Konzentrationslager
Description
Fritz Koenig produced the "Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany" for the concentration camp memorial in Mauthausen, Austria in 1982. The epitaph was set up in front of the quarry's steep slope and is part of a grove where numerous nations' memorials commemorate the endless suffering that the National Socialists brought about through the Holocaust. Fritz Koenig was a front-line soldier in the Second World War. His intense preoccupation with human existence and its exposedness is based on his war experiences. Koenig already grappled with graphic issues and innovative solutions to topics concerning the memorial culture at an early stage. In this work, a human figure composed of basic stereometric elements lies lonely and lost in the middle of a monumental stage architecture of rusty steel brackets. In its symbolically reduced visual language it becomes a moving symbol for the fragility and loneliness of the human individual.
Author
Stephanie Gilles M.A.