Description

The subtitle “Pictures – Poems – Documents on the Anti-Colonial Monument in Bremen” clearly points the way to the content, design and conception of the book, which deliberately cannot be easily classified into the categories: non-fiction book, catalogue, documentation, book of poems, photo book - it is something of everything.

The photographs change clearly between the illustration and the artistic detailed view, which reflect moods, work serially and give the viewer different views and insights into the experience of the actor Michael Weisser, into his confrontation with the elephant. A confrontation that, according to his artistic credo, aims to create communication and convey insights. His methodology is aesthetic field research using media, in this case images and very different types of text.

The subject of the book "The Elefant!" is the artistic-scientific-political examination of this "artefact trouvée" and is classified in the context of "Art Action as Monument Criticism".

The book, the pictures it contains, the poems specially written by Inge Buck and Rudolph Bauer and the documentation of historical and current materials have been designed with reference to this anti-colonial monument and realized with the grateful support of the publisher - the association "Der Elefant e.V.” – and with the support of the Berenberg Bank and the law firm Schaefer and Krautwald.

The 3 main authors Inge Buck, Rudolph Bauer and Michael Weisser position themselves with their respective special artistic means against the every colonial-romantic transfiguration of the icons of “white masters”, “black servants” and “wild animals”, which still have a subliminal effect today, and with their pictures and verses they come to a current interpretation of history through a new contextualization and the targeted inversion - i.e. the ideological reversal - of the colonial-historical intention. This means becoming clear about the impact of the monument, debating the colonial history of Bremen and Germany, and becoming aware of our responsibility today.