THE ERASURE / Names in Resistance

© 2020

For the participatory performance CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK / Names in resistance , Franz Wassermann uses chalk spray to spray a Hakenkreuz on the glass entrance door of the Neues Tiroler Landhaus. As soon as the spray chalk has dried, the participants in the performance write the names of murdered resistance fighters on the chalk surface with their fingers, so that the swastika is first fragmented and then erased. The Neue Tiroler Landhaus was built in 1938/39 as a fascist Gauhaus.

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 remembers the sacrifice of the resistance fighters and asks how we want to deal with their democratic legacy.

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

As an artistic response to the rejection by the politicians, this performance was realized alone in Franz Wassermann’s studio in 2020 and processed into two video works: THE ERASURE / Names in Resistance in which the video is played backwards and at the end the Hakenkreuz stands and the names are erased.