THE ERASURE / Mauthausen Oath

© 2020

The participatory performance CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK was intended to commemorate the resistance fighters of National Socialism in the 2018 commemorative year and create a living memorial to them in two locations.

The artist Franz Wassermann sprayed a swastika on the glass entrance gates of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and the New Tyrolean State House in Innsbruck. As soon as the spray chalk has dried, the sign is removed together with participants from the public by writing text on the chalk surface with their fingertips. In this way, the swastika is gradually defragmented and finally erased completely.

The performances in Vienna and Innsbruck focus on different content and aesthetics. In Vienna, a choir of volunteers recites the Mauthausen Oath of 1945. Following their words, Franz Wassermann writes the oath into the swastika, causing it to disappear. In Innsbruck, the artist reads out the names of Austrian resistance fighters. Volunteers sponsor one name each and write them into the authoritarian symbol until it is erased from the glass entrance gate.

Along the Vienna-Tyrol axis, CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK reminds us that democracy in Austria was made possible by the sacrifice of resistance fighters. The ritual of writing calls for a living remembrance of this part of Austrian history and appeals to our responsibility to take care of the legacy of the resistance fighters. This process was and is only possible thanks to the civil courage of many people.

In the commemorative year 2018, which marks both the founding of the Republic of Austria in 1918 and the Anschluss of Austria to Germany in 1938, CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK / Names in Resistance and CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK / Mauthausen Oath commemorate the sacrifice of the resistance fighters and ask how we want to deal with their democratic legacy.

The planned performance with the population was not approved by the Tyrolean provincial government and the Austrian Burghauptmanschaft.

As an artistic response to the rejection by politics and bureaucracy, these performances were realized alone in Franz Wassermann’s studio in 2020 and processed into two video works: THE ERASURE / Names in Resistance and THE ERASURE / Mauthausen Oath in which the videos are played backwards and at the end the swastika stands and the names and the Mauthausen oath are erased.