Synagoge Stommelna: Art Projects

In 1991, the city of Pulheim, Germany initiated an unusual ongoing art project: the Synagogue Stommeln Project. Outstanding contemporary artists were invited to realize a work of art, entering into a dialogue with the synagogue: as historical site, as a physical space, and as architecture. That same year, Jannis Kounellis—of arte povera fame—laid the cornerstone for this amazingly successful exhibition series, followed by Richard Serra, Georg Baselitz, Mischa Kuball, Eduardo Chillida, Maria Nordman, Carl Andre, Rebecca Horn, and Erich Rausch in the years that followed.

In 2000, the tenth exhibition in the series, designed by Giuseppe Penone, provides the occasion for the publication of Synagoge Stommeln: Art Projects. This singular and historically necessary document features the individual works of all of the participants since 1991, as well as essays by noted authors, weaving a fascinating narrative of the power of both memory and historicism in contemporary art.