Since 1999, the installation "Concert for Buchenwald" by the artist Rebecca Horn has been on display in a historic tram depot in the disused E-Werk Weimar. The internationally acclaimed work is considered one of the most important examples of the Holocaust in contemporary art in Germany.
The installation
Old, used musical instruments and the corresponding leather cases are piled up on a short track of rails. It is a silent concert for Buchenwald: the violins, mandolins and guitars are symbolic of each individual fate in this installation. However, the music and the singing, the people, are missing. The installation was created especially for the approximately 150 square meter windowless room of the former tram depot. In this way, the work is inextricably linked to the place and, through its connection to Buchenwald, to the city of Weimar.
The installation was created as part of the European City of Culture Year 1999 in Weimar. In 2002 it was purchased for the Klassik Stiftung Weimar with the generous support of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the German Savings Banks and Giro Association with its Savings Banks Cultural Fund as well as the Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Hessen-Thüringen, the Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, the SV Sparkassen-Versicherung and the Sparkasse Mittelthüringen. Since 2019, the installation has been part of the Quartier Weimarer Moderne.
The Artist
Rebecca Horn was born in the Odenwald in 1944 and studied at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and at St. Martin's School of Art in London. Since 1989 she has been teaching at the Berlin University of the Arts. She lives in Berlin and Paris. In her award-winning works, Rebecca Horn combines different artistic disciplines such as performances, installations, kinetic objects, poetics, film and drawings.
General opening hours
Sat-Sun, Holidays | 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
