Books on Fire
by Spadecaller
Title
Books on Fire
Artist
Spadecaller
Medium
Digital Art - Digital & Photographic Art
Description
In Berlin, the capital of Germany, there is a library with empty white shelves. Sunken under the public square, Bebelplatz, is a book burning memorial about what was lost during Hitler's climb to power. What was lost and burnt were the books written by those who the Nazis banished and persecuted, those who had to leave the country and whose stories were no longer allowed to be told. The library memorial was designed by an Israeli artist, Micha Ullman and was unveiled on March 20th, 1995.
The subterranean bookshelves have the unused space for about 20,000 books, as a symbolic reminder of the thousands of books that went up in flames on May 10th, 1933, by order of Hitler’s fascist government. Two bronze plates at the memorial site are inscribed with the warning:
“That was but a prelude;
where they burn books,
they will ultimately burn people as well.
Heinrich Heine 1820.”
Just last week, Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, Florida began compiling its list of books proposed for removal in compliance with House Bill 1069 which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. A worldwide bestseller by a Jewish Holocaust victim; a novel by a beloved and conservative Jewish American writer; a memoir of growing up mixed-race and Jewish; and a contemporary novel about a high-achieving Jewish family are among the blacklisted books.
The rise of anti-Semitism and fascism in the twenty-third century has emerged again. During this last school year (2023), the purge of books from Orange County Public School, in Orlando, Florida aroused the artist’s desire to create “Books on Fire.” As the grandson of holocaust survivors, Spadecaller was inspired to create this artwork, which was completed in his Florida studio on 12/27/2023.
Uploaded
December 27th, 2023
Embed
Share
Recently Viewed
