Holocaust Memorial, Judenplatz, Vienna, Austria

Rachel Whiteread

2000

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Small rectangular building made of steel and concrete with double doors on square base next to city buildings. — Whiteread’s memorial for Austrian Jewish victims of the Holocaust is located in Vienna in a square known as the Judenplatz. Sometimes called the Nameless Library, the steel and concrete structure has a façade meant to resemble shelves of books with their spines turned inward. Its double doors have no doorknobs or handles. Twelve feet high, twenty-four feet wide, and thirty-three feet long, the memorial also resembles a bunker and the artist confirmed that military fortifications were one inspiration for its design. Not meant to be beautiful, it was intended to provoke discomfort by making public a shame that some would prefer would remain hidden. The Judenplatz is also the site of a medieval synagogue that was burned down in 1420 during anti-Jewish violence. Recent excavations have revealed the remains of the synagogue below the square.

Credits

Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.

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

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Creator Bio

Rachel Whiteread

b. 1963

British artist Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures are often cast objects, representing negative space, and are made from materials such as rubber, resin, and plastic. In 1995, she was asked by Austria to create a memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust. The result, sometimes described as an “inside-out library,” was erected in 2000 in the Judenplatz in Vienna and references both Nazi book-burnings and the notion of Jews as “people of the book.” Whiteread is the first woman ever to have won Great Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize (1993). Her solo exhibitions include shows at the Kunsthalle Basel, the Reina Sofia, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Deutsche Guggenheim.

Details

Public Access

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