Tag X
Urbane Künste Ruhr, 2019
Haus der Statistik Berlin, 2019
Schirn Frankfurt/Main, 2020
Zeppelinmuseum Friedrichshafen, 2021
steirischer herbst Graz, 2022
With Tag X, Henrike Naumann launches a remarkable memorial at Haus der Statistik. On display is a video in which an anonymous contemporary witness recalls a political upheaval in Germany. The pictures show demonstrations and acts of violence on Alexanderplatz in Berlin. In the course of the video, the events become blurred. Is it about 1989 or 2019? Was socialism defeated, or was a new state established with a far right revolution?
The background of the work are prepper networks that became known in 2018. These networks are preparing themselves for a violent systemic change in Germany and maintain connections to the police, the Federal Armed Forces and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Naumann addresses these developments on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in a dystopian scenario of far-right fantasies of upheaval. Home accessories and design classics become weapons with which everyone can fight on Day X in Germany.
The impetus for my work came from the discovery in 2018 of the so-called Nordkreuz network, which was preparing quite concretely for a Day X and the collapse of public order in the Federal Republic, including death lists and ammunition depots. The group included former SEK officers and members of the Bundeswehr, as well as lawyers, doctors, engineers – all people who have a secure existence in Germany. I was interested in the fact that people radicalize themselves from a privileged position and that state employees work to abolish the system.
Interview von Marc Schwietring: Die ›Erfolgsgeschichte Einheit‹ ist ambivalent, in: Jungle World, 47–/2019, 21.11.2019
