Anette Becker

This exhibit deals with destruction: The destruction of Dresden 60 years ago and its resulting trauma. To this day, the tragedy of Dresden moves us. It continues to demand our attention. It remains unresolved. Is there a way to address this lack of ­resolution?

In her work, exhibited in the Kreuzkirche today, Anette Becker attempts to address this issue. She invites visitors to become ­participants, not mere observers, in the process of experiencing the unresolved pain of tragedy and in searching for its eventual resolution.

When Anette Becker decided to undertake this project, she set out to investigate her own sense of ”unresolvedness” by ­recreating and, therefore, participating in the Dresden tragedy herself.

First, the artist created individual columns that are to symbolize human souls. Each column was created with distinct ­characteristics and covered with a layer of silver paint to ­represent innocence, clarity, and strength.

In addition, she added a coating of wax for protection. Indeed, the columns seemed to exude wholeness and invulnerability! Observers of her art “in progress” actually reported a sense of pride and of “longing to be with” these souls.

In order to become conscious of the emotions that are brought forth in the presence of destructive power, Ms. Becker destroyed her ”human souls”, by violently hitting them with tools and ­melting their protective wax shields. This process proved ­extremely painful and left the artist shaken for weeks.

To her own surprise, she experienced the horrors of ­simultaneously being both the victim and the perpetrator of ­destruction. The artist’s first impulse was to get away from these horrible emotions, to submerge them deep into her unconscious. However, this did not work. They kept creeping up in her mind. She then began painting the wounds of her destroyed souls, highlighting their pain and bringing it to the forefront of her consciousness, in the hope that exposing the wounds might bring relief from their horror.

Indeed, it did bring some relief – but not enough. In order for ­resolution to occur, a shift in perspective seemed to be required.

The famous picture of the angel-like statue turned towards a devastated Dresden became a watershed experience for the artist. The loving gesture, with which the statue seems to invite and embrace the city, suggests an acceptance of the devastation without judgment. The artist began to accept that the possibility for coming to terms with the destruction required looking closely at the horror of the tragedy while at the same time experiencing a non-judgemental attitude toward its occurrence.

The angel-like statue offers us a fleeting moment of undivided devotion and attention to what was and is part of us. The ­message is: “Look what is there! Just accept what is. Do not let judgments cloud your ability to absorb and accept all of our humanness: ­creation, innocence, violence, and destruction.”

Anette Becker wants us to participate in the Dresden tragedy as the statue does. 

As the painted wounds of her “human souls” become exposed to close examination and suppressed relations to suffering are given access to conscious awareness; the artist invites the observer to become actively engaged in discovering his or her own potential to examine the suffering of self and of others, without censoring, and while remaining free of judgment. From this judgment free examination may spring resolution and ­healing. 

The abstract nature of Ms. Becker’s work allows the participants to project their own meaning onto the scene, such as the ­mirrored writing and the sound of dripping wax in the stillness.

Text: Janssen Peters