Actually, Mario Pfeifer’s video installation should be a shelved-down xenophobic attack in the next year shown. Due to the recent developments in Saxony, you can see now.
The pictures and news about the right-wing riots in Chemnitz after the homicide of a German – were allegedly committed by men from the Middle East to the world. Thoroughly devoted and the German press is dedicated to the result of the question as to the Why and how of the xenophobia and the accompanying violence can be stopped.
An incident in the Saxon town of Arnsdorf of 2016, when a Fugitive from four German men was handcuffed after a dispute in a supermarket on a tree, however, drew very little attention. With the Installation of the “Again / again” by the artist Mario Pfeifer, who was already seen at this year’s Berlin Biennale, want to remember the Chemnitz art collections now on, the little-noticed event and pulled out their for 2019 planned Review in light of the current developments in Saxony.
Brutal vigilante justice, or “selfless act of courage”?
“Again” picks up the story of the 21-year-old Iraqi refugee Shabaz Saleh Al-Aziz, who came to 2015 alone from Iraq to Germany to get help for his epilepsy. 21. May 2016, it comes into a food business, a dispute between him and the cashier. After he was several times returned to the day excited in the Store, dragged him four men from the Shop, beat him up and tied him with cable ties to a tree.
A part of the incident and the next downstream of the scenes were filmed also in Mario Pfeifer’s video installation.
Many people in the city described the Actions of the men as “a selfless act of courage” – Pfeifer’s work challenges this perspective.
For several minutes the incident was filmed in the Arnsdorfer supermarket is also the question of whether it could have been a deliberate staging by the rights traded, stand in the room
Court: “no public interest”
Against the four suspects finally, a court procedure was initiated. Originally ten hearing days were scheduled, but shortly after the opening of the process, a defender and a Prosecutor agreed to discontinue the proceedings: Al-Aziz, the victim, was found a week before the start of the process frozen to death in the forest, could not so testify. The four defendants were found no entries in the criminal register and the court, there will be no public interest in the case. Supporters of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), as well as extreme right-wing groups welcomed the decision.
The incident to Shabaz Saleh Al-Aziz occurred not far from Mario Pfeifer’s home city of Dresden. The artist says he raises “fundamental questions about our present-day society” in Germany. Piper is concerned that it by the adjusted process normal could be that people operate under the pretext of “civil courage” self-justice.
“The monopoly of law and justice, the exercise of civil law is no longer in the hands of the state, but in the hands of people claiming to strengthen their own idea of justice. I find this unacceptable and dangerous,” he told DW.
“Would not have happened to a German the Same?”
In his Film, ten citizens also, the have self-made experiences with racism in Germany and your feelings and thoughts to the incident, describe. Many of them moved to tears at the sight of the act of violence against Shabaz Saleh Al-Aziz. And you all are shocked that the event will be held in the German media is small, and the company has not been convicted.
“Would not have happened to a German the Same?”, ask someone from the group. “I’m not sure,” answers a woman. You have lost confidence in the courts.
The spectators from the Piper Installation are shocked about the handling of the incident
Art and culture: food for thought, but no solutions
Johannes Odenthal, programme officer of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, says that plants such as Piper play an important role in society. “It is a work of memory. The production of art is very important to rethink the story, to give Narrative space to work in justice to minorities.”
Gabriele Horn Director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, adds: “art can show social developments and contradictions, alternative Narratives are heard and differentiated discussions, allow – by other means as, for example, of journalism.”
However, according to Horn, it should be understood “art, not as a panacea that is intended to solve current social problems. This is primarily the task of politics.”
Right-wing extremism continues to be a big issue
The exhibition of Mario Pfeifer’s “Again / again” is included in a variety of artistic actions, which are already on the xenophobic protests in Chemnitz. Think of the Chemnitz-based Anti-racism concert, with around 65,000 spectators, the Open-Air-concert with Beethoven’s ninth Symphony “Ode to joy” or the bronze wolf statues that stand in front of the Karl-Marx-Monument.
The Chemnitz Theater is planning an Opera about the resistance movement “the White Rose” – as a Protest against the Wearing of white roses of extreme-right protesters and also at the upcoming film festival, DOK Leipzig (29. October to 4. November) will be the right-wing extremism “is definitely a Central issue,” said the organizers.