Krzysztof Wodiczko, "Institute for the Abolition of War", photo: press release
Two years after the great success of his installation for the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Krzysztof Wodiczko unveils his new project "Arc de Triomphe, Institut mondial pour l'abolition de la guerre". His newest work attempts to transform one of the most famous monuments of Paris and symbols of France, the Arc de Triomphe
For Krzysztof Wodiczko, the monument located at Place Charles de Gaulle connotes primarily negative feelings. According tot he artist, "In today's world and especially the European Community, the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile in Paris must be seen as a grotesquely anachronistic symbol. It is a major historical suspect and witness to the most deadly and destructive military and ideological adventures in the history of modern Europe".
The idea of the Arc was first proposed by Napolean Bonaparte. It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by the Emperor at the peak of his fortunes. However, it took almost thirty years for the builders to finish the construction of this humongous memorial of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon's Empire staged first modern Total War through mobilization of 1.5 million people through conscription. The Napoleonic Wars resulted in estimated 4 million of the roughly 205 million war deaths of the 19th and 20th centuries.
As Krzysztof Wodiczko remarks:
The Arc commemorates the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War (through the underground Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) in elaborate iconic, inscriptive, and architectural ways, while it does not commemorate in any way their devastating aftermath nor it does anything to help ending war. Most importantly, it does nothing to help end war. The "peace" achieved at the end of the Napoleonic wars and the later "war to end wars" - World War I - serves as grave testimony to the absurd illusion that a lasting peace can be achieved through war.
In this sense, continues the artist, the Arc is a legitimizing marker for subsequent wars and hence the worldwide dissemination of modern "triumphal" memorial arches, eternal flames, and tombs for unknown soldiers. The Institute for the Abolition of War, as foreseen by Wodiczko, would be a structure surrounding the Arc de Triomphe. When the Institute is built, the Arc will be seen as immersed and contained in the Institute's larger structure. Capitalizing on its most prominent location on the Voie Triomphale in line with monuments that extend from the center of Paris to the west, the Institute would assume a central place on the cognitive map of Paris and would thus inscribe itself powerfully in the minds of visitors.
The Arc de Triomphe: World Institute for the Abolition of War is an institutional and architectural idea for an international transdisciplinary center offering both a symbolic structure for inspiring philosophical, psycho-analytical, and political engagement, and an activist center to encourage analytical, proactive, and transformative approaches to the war-abolitionist process. [...]
The grand national and imperial war narrative inscribed through all parts and surfaces of the Arc require detailed cross examination. Transforming war-bound cultures requires critical investigations of its roots, artifacts, and relics.
-Krzysztof Wodiczko
For the purpose of such an examination, the structure of the Institute will be equipped with a system of walk ways, ramps, elevators, and vertically moving viewing platforms to allow, inspire, and assist the scholars, philosophers, and visitors in studying the war iconography of the Arc while hearing and viewing interpretative and historical narratives, as well as debates and discussions between philosophers, scholars, peace activists, politicians, and while engaging with them in dialogues directly or with special communication media.But the core concept of Wodiczko's project transcends the architectural or institutional goals. As he puts it:
In our unconscious, we are ourselves War Memorials while, as a product and a fabric of our nationalistic and chauvinist heritage, we are part of a larger external War Memorial named Culture. If we wish to foster living rather than dying and killing, we must take up the task of disarming both ourselves as War Memorials and the entire culture as one integrated War Memorial. A new Arc de Triomphe would then deserve its glorious name.
The exhibition runs from May 21 through July 20, 2011.
Gabrielle Maubrie Gallery
24, rue Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie
75004 Paris
www.gabriellemaubrie.com
Source: Instytut Polski w Paryżu