Passages, Homage to Walter Benjamin

Dani Karavan

1994

Photograph of metal sculpture in the shape of a V through which the ocean and rocky outcropping beyond is visible.
Passages is a memorial in Portbou, Spain, created by Karavan to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of cultural critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin. Benjamin committed suicide in Portbou while attempting to escape Nazi-occupied France. The title of memorial refers not only to Benjamin’s ill-fated passage over the Pyrenees to Portbou, but also to his unfinished last work, Passagen-Werk or Arcades Project. It is believed he had the manuscript with him, but it was not recovered and has never been found. The memorial includes a tunnel with a flight of stairs leading to a pane of glass overlooking the sea, a platform for meditation, and an ancient olive tree. Karavan chose the colors for the memorial’s structural elements so that they would be integrated into the surrounding landscape, the brown and gray rocks on the cliff on which Passages sits.

Credits

Photo by Jaume Blasi. Courtesy of the artist.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.

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Creator Bio

Dani Karavan

1930–2021

The son of the chief landscape architect of Tel Aviv, Dani Karavan began designing site-specific environmental sculptures in Israel in the early 1960s. In 1976, he represented Israel at the Venice Biennale with a work from his series, Environments for Peace. Since then, he has created large-scale environmental sculptures around the world. Among his most notable projects are Passages, Homage to Walter Benjamin (Portbou, Spain, 1990–1994) and The Way of Peace (between Israel and Egypt, 1996–2000). Karavan earned the Israel Prize (1977) and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale Art Prize (1998).

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