306 000 crosses - created for the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle in Verdun Installation

A film about this installation is to see on https://vimeo.com/161623007 It was 100 years ago. 306,000 French and German soldiers were killed or disappeared during the Battle of Verdun in 1916, one of the deadliest in history. What comes to mind when I think about it, is the huge amount, the almost nebulous mass of deaths. At the same time all those lives, hundreds of thousands of different individuals, some of whom were our great-grandparents. 100 years later, can we still think of each of these particular lives even though we did not know them? Can we individualize this historical fact? What place does the individual have in the collective memory? “306 000 crosses” is an attempt to think of the individual in the collective memory. Drawn with charcoal, each cross is different, it refers to the death of an individual soldier. For each of them, I try not to forget it. The realization process helps me because it takes time, it leads to injuries, aches, and cramps. This forces me to stop, as if to recollect myself. Yet, a little against my will, a systematization is taking place, and I often produce the crosses without even thinking about them, I try to produce the mass, this gray and fragile mass that will finally remain when the charcoal gradually vanishes. This installation received the “Centenary” Label of the First World War Centenary Partnership (www.centenaire.org) “306 000 crosses”, charcoal on paper, ca. 3m * 11m (238 A3 size sheets), 2016 - created for the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle in Verdun. (credit: Stiftung Genshagen - René Arnold)

Installation:Charcoal on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:433.1 W x 118.1 H x 0.2 D in

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