RIGHT-WING FACTIONS PROTEST SYRIAN ARTIST’S INSTALLATION IN DRESDEN

An artwork by Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni, Monument, 2017, which was sponsored by the Dresden Kunsthaus and installed close to the city’s Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, is being protested by Dresden’s right-wing factions, writes Catherine Hickley of the Art Newspaper. Halbouni’s piece, made from a trio of destroyed buses turned upright, is based on a 2016 photograph taken in Aleppo of buses pointed skyward and joined with wire so that they could function as a barricade to protect residents from battle. Monument is a symbol of war and regeneration, much like the church it stands near, which was demolished during World War II and rebuilt when Germany reunified.

The work has incensed many in Dresden since it was publicly unveiled on February 7. The city is home to the right-leaning, anti-immigration movement called Pegida. About 150 protestors gathered near the work yesterday, chanting “traitors” and “get lost.” The artistic director of the Dresden Kunsthaus, Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, said, “We have hit a nerve with this project—an important nerve. It shows how important it is to focus on this subject. We have to be open to the suffering of others.”

Pegida supporters and members of the populist Alternative for Germany party used social media to make their anger about the work quite clear. Many of them said Monument should be burned. They have also threatened Dresden’s mayor, Dirk Hilbert, with violence for allowing the work to go up.