GESCHICHTE WIRD KUNST / IMPRINTING HISTORY

Abstract

PEENEMÜNDE PROJECT: GESCHICHTE WIRD KUNST /IMPRINTING HISTORY took place between July and October 2015 in the historic area of Peenemünde in Germany. In partnership with the Till Richter Museum for International Contemporary Art, Schloss Buggenhagen, and the Historical Technical Museum, Peenemunde, two visual artists, Gregorio Iglesias Mayo (Catalonia) and Miguel A. Aragón (Mexico/USA) were invited to respond to Peenemünde, the location of an arms and weapons research centre that was, between 1936 to 1945, the largest armaments centre in Europe.

Usedom is a Pomeranian Island, on the edge of the Baltic Sea, an idyllic fishing village and unlikely setting for a history of war crimes and forced labour during the national socialist era in the mid 20th C. A testing site for rockets and long- range weapons, acts of death and destruction were formulated here before wreaking violence on the rest of the world. Gregorio Iglesias Mayo responded to the history of place through painting and imprinting a colossal canvas on the grounds of the power station site now the Historical-Technical Museum. While printmaker Miguel A. Aragón worked on photograms and direct prints that reference the layered and complex history of this former research station.