The London-based artist Gustav Metzger has been invited to develop a new work for skulptur projekte münster 07. In reference to the devastation of the Second World War, Metzger hopes to initiate a simple conciliatory gesture between the cities of Coventry and Münster with his project entitled
In November 1940, the German Luftwaffe carried out a series of devastating bombing raids on the English industrial city of Coventry, leading to the largest number of causalities suffered during any German attack in England and the almost complete destruction of the city. In retaliation, the Royal Air Force began its carpet bombing of German towns, which by 1945 had left Münster in ruins.
In allusion to the massive bombing raids during the Second World War and the daily images of destruction in the affected cities at the time, a forklift truck will be used to deposit a varying number of stones at different locations within Münster’s town centre on each of the 107 days of the exhibition. The city of Coventry has been invited to participate in the project during the same period and to create, according to the same principle, a growing monument of stones as a counterpart to the one in Münster.
Every morning, the precise location for that day will be chosen by a random generator from a total of 107 possibilities. This will continue until the end of the exhibition, when stones will have been placed in each of the locations. The number and arrangement of the stones will be determined in advance. After the forklift truck has moved the stones to their destination, they will be photographed. At the end of the exhibition, the stones will disappear from the townscape.
The progress of this steadily growing monument will be documented here. In the exhibition room of the Westfälischer Kunstverein,