Amon Goeth’s Krakow Dreams

 

Amon Goeth’s Krakow Dreams was a project devoted to the victims of the commanding officer of the Płaszów concentration camp and to himself. The project was exhibited in Goeth’s former residence, a house on ul. Wiktora Heltmana 22. Goeth – notorious for his murderous activity – was portrayed in accounts of inmates who managed to survive captivity in a labour camp (later transformed into a concentration camp). Using their accounts and other archival materials, the artists created a textual-visual story raising the complex issue of “non-places of memory”.Within the framework of the narration created by the artists, half-historical, half-potential, they looked at Krakow of the 1940s through Goeth’s existence in the reality of that time. The creators were interested in the commanding officer’s interpersonal relationships (with his family and co-workers, but also camp inmates, who were often forced to work in Goeth’s own home), as well as in his obsessions and illusions (e.g. imagining the camp as an embodiment of utopia).The artists’ intention was to create a textual and visual installation in Goeth’s former house. The entire narration was divided into chapters which outlined the sightseeing order. The story – the convention of which is half-dreamy, half-retrospective – started when Goeth was about to be executed and unraveled as a string of his mental and visual reminiscences of an uncertain ontological status.Through the adopted perspective, the spectator was provoked to have a look at the images of wartime Krakow and get to know the communication routes of the time – both stroll paths and ways that constituted communication channels between the Płaszów camp and the SS or the Gestapo headquarters (correspondence often sealing the death of hundreds of people).The literary narration was accompanied by a visual layer. Each chapter of the story was accompanied by a selection of works referring to recognisable visual clichés, but also based on archival materials. Artwork was produced in various techniques – graphic art, collage, video.

 

SOURCE: http://www.artboomfestival.pl/en/80/3/99