harutyun simonyan

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erlauf remembers  (2)

The 1200 inhabitants of the Erlauf in the district of Melk owe the knowledge of the village's participation in world history to an émigré who had to flee to the USA in 1938 because of racism. Almost unnoticed by the local residents, this was the site of the historic handshake between an American general and a Soviet general when Nazi Germany capitulated
on 8 May 1945.
The exhibition 'Erlauf erinnert sich ... (2) – Monumente, Gegenmonumente und Nation' (Erlauf Remembers... 2 – Monuments, counter-monuments and Nation) related to the two existing monuments (by Jenny Holzer and by Oleg Komov), the town itself, the Second World War and the Holocaust.

In the waiting room of Erlauf station Harutyun Simonyan from Yerivan (Armenia) focused on a monument with a different significance, the anti-monument: the retreat of the subject. In the video 'Uterus' the artist imaged being back in the foetus stage, at the same time bringing the exterior of the station into the interior space of the waiting room per video camera.

The project is documented in the art archive of the museum ERLAUF ERINNERT .