On May 10, 1933, twenty thousand books were burned in more than ninety cities across Germany, including works by Jewish, socialist, and liberal authors, - just steps from the PalaisPopulaire at Bebelplatz (then Opernplatz). Acts of destruction of this kind leave deep scars in the intellectual heritage of a culture.
In her installation For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit (2023), Shilpa Gupta evokes the silence of lost voices, which extends far beyond National Socialism, resonating across different eras and geographies. Four wooden shelves hold one hundred golden book monoliths, each engraved with the name of a poet silenced by cencorship, persecution, or exile. Fragments of their works are inscribed in the monoliths, yet the empty spaces betwenn them speak to what was left unsaid and unheard. Gupta reflects in censorship as a destructive force that threatens the freedom of though. In this void lives the memory of books never read and voices never heard.
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Shilpa Gupta, For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, 2023
© Shilpa Gupta. Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo: Sebastian Bac
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On May 10, 1933, twenty thousand books were burned in more than ninety cities across Germany, including works by Jewish, socialist, and liberal authors, - just steps from the PalaisPopulaire at Bebelplatz (then Opernplatz). Acts of destruction of this kind leave deep scars in the intellectual heritage of a culture.
In her installation For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit (2023), Shilpa Gupta evokes the silence of lost voices, which extends far beyond National Socialism, resonating across different eras and geographies. Four wooden shelves hold one hundred golden book monoliths, each engraved with the name of a poet silenced by cencorship, persecution, or exile. Fragments of their works are inscribed in the monoliths, yet the empty spaces betwenn them speak to what was left unsaid and unheard. Gupta reflects in censorship as a destructive force that threatens the freedom of though. In this void lives the memory of books never read and voices never heard.
Further artworks from this exhibition
Introduction of the exhibition
It's Just a Matter of Time
Julian Irlinger, James Gregory Atkinson, Philippe Parreno, Petrit Haliaj
Rotunda
Max Beckmann, Lena Henke, Nancy Lupo, Heidi Bucher, Martin Kippenberger, Rachel Whiteread
Room 2
Cildo Meireles, Wisrah Celestino, Kai Althoff, Kandis Williams
Transition Room 2 to Room 3
Felix Gonzales-Torres, George Tony Stoll, Manfred Paul, Julia Phillips, Shilpa Gupta
Room 3
Cornelia Schleime, Marianne Berenhaut, Christo, Rosemarie Trockel, Latifa Echakhch
Room 4