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Windhoek - Gelsenkirchen / Gelsenkirchen
"The new monument"
Schooltheatre, Robert Mugabe Street, Windhoek.
Realization: August 2001
| | The new monument, Klaus Klinger, Natasha Beukes
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| | the artists
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At the end of july the artists Klaus Klinger and Kai Teschner flew with their families to Windhoek, Namibia, to realized the project of a mural in cooperation with a team artists from Namibia.
Klaus Klinger and Natasha Beukes worked together in Gelsenkirchen in May of 2001.
| | in work
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The artists lived together for four weeks in Natasha’s house in Katutura, one of the sectors of Windhoek where only black Namibians lived. One of the things that strongly marked them from the very first moment was to observe the strong separation, difference and segregation that still existed up to day in Namibia. It was surprising things for the White Namibians that the recent arrived artists wanted to live and work in Katutura, side by side with Black Namibians and black artists. Namibia was the portrait of two worlds that not only showed a big economical difference but also the limitated comunication and understanding between blacks and whites.
The percentage of white population is in Namibia of about a 7% but the economical power and the land ownership is absolutely in white hands. Even the National Gallery of Namibia is directed almost completely by whites. “It was problably something very new what we, blacks and whites wanted to come together with our work. The two murals wanted to embody that work in partnership.”
| | the german militarist monument
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Natasha Beukes and Klaus Klinger’s mural reflected the discussion that surrounded the German monument to the colonizating troops. The militarist monument consisted on a German warrior ridding a horse and observing the city from his priviledged site. It was dedicated to the "honor of the brave German conquerors" that between 1903 and 1908 killed thousends of women, children and men, to save the predominancy of the German rule.
The question of what to do with that monument has been going through for a long time. Some wanted to give it to the Germnan Consul in Namibia and some others wanted to donate it to a Museum.
In the mural, the rider was replaced for a rabbit as a symbol of a new armful and peaceful coexistence throughout culture and art. In the mural, replacing the inscription of monument plate stayed the poem of the black artist Sandile.
| | visitors
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The mural awoke controversy but developped a discussion that is important not only for Namibia.
“Given the controversy, it is not surprising for us that the project, after that the coordinator Stephan Beyer finished his work, did not count with the support of any Namibian public institution and was realized and organized enterely by the group of artists.”
Supporters:LTU and NRW, Germany
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