Georg Soanca-Pollak’s work is in the context of his artistic search for forms of commemorating the victims of National Socialism. It is determined by his search for images which correspond with the recollections of those affected and also maintain a connection with coming generations, integrating them emotionally and providing the incentive for an exchange.

The extensive installation realised for the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site “I see the lights of the town – I see them out” consists of three individual works: “Images of Remembrance”, “Sky” and “18 Minutes”.

Images of Remembrance

40 passepartouts are laid out on a simple spruce wood table. If visitors approach the table they will see that each contains a small black and white portrait. The basis for “Images of Remembrance” is provided by the biographical data of people who were incarcerated and killed in the Dachau concentration camp during the National Socialist dictatorship. Georg Soanca-Pollak chose 40 individual portraits so that they can be experienced in a new context. To represent the fate of thousands he therefore focuses on individual people. It is as though the snapshot of the photography is only a fraction, a tiny piece of the lives of the people who thus return to awareness for a short time.

Starting from the moment captured in the photo, here the life of a person is recalled. Hidden behind soft, grey cardboard which forms a contrast to the small black and white copy, the viewers select individual photos. They now want to find out more about the person shown here. So the encounter with the work becomes a gesture and at the same time a sensual experience for the viewers. The people in the photos become alive through their image, the recollection is recorded. For a moment the viewers partake in the life of a person and let this person’s individual fate emerge from the anonymity of abstract numbers.

Sky

Hanging at the end of the spruce wood table are six lengths of material. They symbolise the hint of a piece of sky. Associated with the word sky is the idea of infinite vastness, of a visual and imaginary projection surface, an abstract, otherworldly place, a concept which connects death with life.

Georg Soanca-Pollak projects film shots from the premises of the Dachau memorial onto the lengths of material. The film consists of five shots: 1-minute recordings which are each extended to 18 minutes using slow motion. The constant, slow swinging motion of the camera enables scenic elements and also, randomly, architectural forms to pass by: in the course of this the individual, only vaguely recognisable and fragmentarily displayed building sections – a watchtower, long, flat barracks, a gable, a massive chimney, fence and fence posts – can be identified as typical components of the National Socialist camp architecture designed for functionality and destruction. The details of the camp design are contrasted with repeated views of the open expanse of a blue sky. Two shots in the work also shift the artist himself to the centre. The camera captures his shadow or his silhouette, transparent in front of the trees and sky, to then follow his steps while riveted to the outline. Occasionally the figure tilts as if it is about to lose a foothold and thus symbolises the danger, insecurity and vulnerability of the individual.

The time factor so important for the collective and individual histories also determines the artistic realisation of the work. Film as a medium of recording, storing and archiving as well as playback and documentation is bound to the linear flow of time, the transient. The abilities of film to manipulate time in the form of slow and fast motion mean it is possible to slow down a recording which, in real time, lasts a minute, to a projection time of 18 minutes.

18 Minutes

For the photographic work “18 Minutes” Georg Soanca-Pollak chose 18 stills from the film “Sky”. By expressing and framing individual film sequences he stops time, so to speak. In Hebrew the number 18 represents life.

Georg Soanca-Pollak

Born in 1967 in Klausenburg, Romania. Since 1995 he has focused on Jewish life in Germany before 1945. Using photos of individual people, he has been carrying out a kind of personal preservation of evidence for more than 15 years. His most famous work is the “Passage of Recollection” for the Jewish Community in Munich and Upper Bavaria. Unlike Jewish culture which is associated especially with writing as a form of cultural commemoration, for Georg Soanca-Pollak it is the picture which maintains remembrance. Instead of abstract information on genocide he wants to use the pictures to come close to the persecuted and to remember them.

The exhibition can be visited from 23rd April to 4th October 2009.

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Alte Römerstraße 75
85221 Dachau

Opening times:
Tuesday to Sunday and on public holidays 9 am to 5 pm

The exhibition has been made possible thanks to the friendly support of the Cultural Department of the Regional Capital of Munich