Read More (L.2008.21)

In June 1993, the artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock affixed eighty brightly colored signs to lampposts in Berlin. Most of the short texts on the backs of the framed signs are condensed versions of rules and regulations enacted between 1933 and 1945. The decrees created and enforced by the National Socialists systematically forced Jews out of daily life and gradually robbed them of their basic rights. Isolation and discrimination paved the way for deportations and mass murder. 

Composed in the present tense, the texts correspond in many ways with the colored images on the fronts of the signs. Together, the words and images force passers-by to remember the almost-forgotten history of this neighborhood. Walking through the streets, the observer can relate to the way in which the regulations eroded basic human rights. Questions about the past and about present events often arise.

The two light boxes depicting the memorial were first shown at the Jewish Museum in New York in 2003, ten years after the inauguration of the memorial in Berlin.