Ambivalent Bereavements: Embodying Loss in the Twenty-First Century

Bryoni Trezise

Abstract


Berlin: Embodying Screaming

In the centre of the Memory Void constructed in an angular cavity of the Jewish Museum in Berlin is the installation Shalechet (Fallen Leaves). In it, sculptor Menashe Kadishman invites visitors to tread across a bed of screaming iron faces – faces that have been cut in an image reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893), but that are instead multiplied and made more horrific for their uniform anonymity. Over 10,000 ‘open-mouthed’ and ‘coarsely cut’ faces (Jewish Museum Berlin) flank the floor of the Memory Void to demarcate a pool of silently wailing objects.


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