5 Stellae, 120 x 220 cm, laminated safety glass, ceramic digital printing; mounted in concrete foundation with steel metal base; landscaping

"Memorial to the victims of National Socialist persecution during the German occupation in the Netherlands at the German war cemetery in Ysselsteyn, Netherlands"

Non-open art competition, 2022; Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V., (German War Graves Commission)
Dedicated: December 4, 2023

"The war gravesite in Ysselsteyn is the only German war gravesite in the Netherlands. About 32,000 war dead of the Second World War have been buried or reburied there since the site was established in 1947. The vast majority of the buried dead are soldiers who died during their war service. Also buried in Ysselsteyn are dead of other nationalities who fought on the side of the German forces, Dutch collaborators, and civilians who died during internment in the Netherlands in the post-war period, including some women and children. Among the war dead, according to current research, there are approximately 2,000 to 3,000 graves of persons who actively participated in war crimes and the systematic persecution and murder of Jews, Sinti, Roma and other population groups. Some individuals are also responsible for the persecution and murder of resistance fighters, forced laborers, prisoners of war or civilians."

The international process of creating a "counter-memory" at this site has seen a long and controversial effort by numerous victimized groups - perhaps a process that could only have been facilitated through a generational change.

The core of the concept is to incorporate a space for the commemoration and remembrance of the victims of National Socialism at a burial site for German soldiers, some of whom were perpetrators during the German occupation of the Netherlands.

Arnold Dreyblatt’s "Gates of Remembrance" is clearly visible as one enters and explores the grounds of the cemetery, recontextualizing the historical site for future generations of international visitors. The area of the former "Information Stone" in the central stone circle as the ideal and most appropriate location for the memorial.

As one approaches this central circle along the main axis, one gradually perceives a newly created memorial area - a contemporary intervention in a visual language which contrasts strongly with the historical postwar architectural composition. By removing stones along the far side of the perimeter, the historical circle is thereby "sliced open" - in creating an alternative space for commemoration, contemplation and remembrance.

This incision into this central area represents an "open wound" as a "counter-story" that inserts the fate of the persecuted, ostracized and murdered victims of National Socialism into a site reflecting previous forms of memorial architecture.

Within this newly formed area, five glass stelae, each 120 x 220 centimeters have been erected. The positions of four of the stelae represent the primary sites of National Socialist terror during the period of the German occupation of the Netherlands (Vught, Scheveeningen, Amersfort and Westerbork). These four stellae are placed topographically as they appear in relation to each other on an imaginary map of the Netherlands and they are installed in varying angles in stark contrast to the straight parallel lines of the surrounding graves.

A historical statement, agreed upon during a long period of negotiation, appears on three of the stellae in Dutch, German and English. An additional fifth stellae replaces the historical information stone at the center of the circle, indicating the title of the work along with a topographic map.

Enlarged black and white images of these sites have been chosen from the archive of the NIOD institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam. The perception of these historical images mixes with surrounding environment, metaphorically transporting the past into dialog with the present time and place. The opening up of the circle invites the visitors to explore complex and diverse viewing angles which reveal intersections and reflections of text, image, light and color.

Text Statement:

Never Again

102,000 Jews
tens of thousands of civilians
people engaged in resistance
Sinti and Roma
prisoners of war
forced labourers

fell victim to war, National-Socialist violence persecution,
and murder during the German occupation of the Netherlands

Most were denied a grave of their own
Many remain unknown to this day

Their fate fills us with great sorrow

Production:
Glass and Mounting: Glasmalerei Peters GmbH, Paderborn, Dt Typography: Dirk Lehahn, eye-d, Berlin
Images: NIOD institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam.

In 2016, the Munich City Council decided to commemorate the National Socialist book burnings in public space. The memorial to the 1933 book burning on Königsplatz in Munich was inaugurated on May 6, 2021. Its title, The Blacklist, refers to the lists circulating at the time with the names and works of hundreds of authors. Some of them were literary titles, others non-fiction or scientific publications, and they even included children’s books. All of them were decried by the Nazis as “un-German” and banned from public life.

For his design the artist Arnold Dreyblatt used what was probably the most extensive and best known “black list.” The Nazi librarian Wolfgang Herrmann had compiled a list on his own initiative in spring 1933 and disseminated a kind of guide to “purging” libraries. Many of the organizers of the book burnings used this list to select the books to be burned.

The Blacklist is situated in the center of the semicircular area in front of the steps leading up to the Staatliche Antikensammlungen – the museum of antiquities. The round, walkable artwork fits into the architectural symmetry of the historic ensemble of Königsplatz and the surrounding topography. It measures eight meters in diameter and consists of two coloured, 20 cm thick, reinforced concrete plates fixed to the foundation at ground level. The text spiral is made up of approximately 9,600 letters and is sunk 3mm into the baseplate.

The artwork “The Blacklist” by the artist Arnold Dreyblatt is a public memorial to the book burnings on Königplatz. The titles of the works of 310 authors ostracized by the Nazi regime and its supporters are visible on the memorial. For each author Dreyblatt chose the last work published up to and including 1933. The titles and words are arranged as a continuous spiral and are not separated by punctuation so that each one runs into the next. Seen as a whole, the titles convey the era of the Weimar Republic as the intellectual and cultural highpoint of modernism. What unfolds is a vivid portrayal of this epoch and its lively and passionate analysis of the most pressing political, social, scientific, and literary issues of the time. The close sequence of words and text fragments yields new meanings for the present. The spiral form of the text references both the act of burning the books and the curling spiral of rising smoke and burning pages that one sees on historic photographs of the book burnings.

Nevertheless, the central focus of the artwork is the intellectual and cultural achievements of the authors, not their burning and destruction. The message can be understood in many different ways: on the one hand, it encourages a confrontation with Nazi ideology; on the other it sparks an interest in the cultural heritage that the Nazis so despised, to cite the praise of the jury for Arnold Dreyblatt’s competition entry.

On the initiative of the ethnic chauvinist, nationalist, and anti-Semitic German Students’ Union (Deutsche Studentenschaft) books were burned in many German cities as part of the Aktion wider den undeutschen Geist (campaign against the un-German spirit). The book burnings were the prelude to the systematic removal from libraries, bookshops, and the literary scene of books banned by the Nazis. In Munich, book burnings took place on Königsplatz on May 6 and May 10.

Project management:
Architects: Robert Patz and Bastian Beyer; Art education and mediation: Dorothea Strube; Realization: Hemmerlein Ingenieurbau GmbH Bodenwöhr; Excavation work and foundations: Glass GmbH Bauunternehmung München. Special thanks to: engineer Karl Erhardt, Hemmerlein Ingenieurbau GmbH, Ina Laux (LAUX Architekten), Lars Ulonska (Glass GmbH Bauunternehmung), Dirk Lebahn (eye-D mediengestaltung)

Data Projection, Generative Software
Commissioned by the Akademie der Künste Berlin, 2016
Software: Jens Ewald

Originally Installed in the main stairwell of the Kunstsammlung (Art Collection) in 2016, Chemnitz, built in 1910 as the King Albert Museum and commissioned by the exhibition, "Die Akademie der Künste, Berlin Zu Gast in den Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz".  
The installation was installed permanently in the foyer of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 2017.

The installation is based on a database containing biographical information on all members of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin since 1696 (2481 Members).

The software collects biographical data through word list and categorical searches, displaying the results as scrolling text according to pre-determined graphic locations.  The continually “writing” biographical fragments are in constant movement, never repeating content.  Lists of artwork titles, dates and names are contrasted with historical narratives, resulting in a surprising “peek” into the membership of the Federal German Academy of Art.

“Arnold Dreyblatt focuses his media- and archive-based installations on cultural memory, crossing the boundaries between new and traditional media. REPERTOIRE is based on the history of the Akademie der Künste: more precisely, on the data of more than 2,500 members since its foundation in 1696. The repertoire of biographical, project-related and member data relevant to individual artistic careers is taken from the database of the Akademie's archives. It ranges from the artists of the Wilhelminian period such as Andreas Schlüter, Johann Gottfried Schadow, Max Liebermann, Käthe Kollwitz, Walter Jens, Heiner Müller, Werner Düttmann to current members, including Arnold Dreyblatt himself.
According to keywords and random principle, individual dates appear on the wall, whose only common feature is membership of the Academy of Arts, formerly the "Academy of the Art of Grinding, Painting and Building", then the Royal (Prussian) Academy of Arts etc. Dreyblatt structures this personal information in a new way to highlight the international community of artists who have always contributed to the development of the art of their time.”
- Dr. Anke Hervol, Akademie der Künste

6 Lenticular Panels, 75 x 110 cm

Lenticular Text Installation in two exhibition rooms as part of the new permanent exhibition at the Women's Concentration Camp Ravensbrück Memorial.

Room I: Three works containing texts in the language of the perpetrators referring to reasons for admittance of female inmates into the camp. The fragments are based on documentation of the Gestapo and Criminal Police.

Room II: Three works containing quotations and reports from the years 1942-43 document the point of view of the SS Administration.

Dreyblatt has used lenticular technology as a perceptually interactive means of display. Each work contains up to five text layers, which are viewable as text fragmentas from varying viewing positions, and which "overwrite" each other as in a "palimpsest". As the viewer moves about the room, varying text content appears and disappears.

Commissioned by the Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück.

Newspaper cover was commissioned by the Berliner Zeitung for the Sunday Sept. 9, 2014 Special Edition

25,7 x 36,9 cm

Special Issue relates to the history of Jews in Berlin.

Series of 16 Lenticular Panels, mounted on Alubond, 100 x 100 cm.

The work won first prize in an invited competition which was an initiative of the Governing Mayor of Berlin, the Berlin Senate Department for Cultural Affairs, the Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment and the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial.

Permanently installed at the on the grounds of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial (Gedenkstätte Berlin-Höhenschönhausen) the site of the main prison for internees of the former East German Ministry of State Security (MfS), or 'Stasi'.

Dreyblatt's work of art "Dossier" comprises 16 text panels for the walls of the newly designed seminar and film rooms as well as the cafeteria. These newly renovated spaces are not burdened with historical associations and are openly navigated by the visiting public.

Memories of former prisoners, official orders and contextualising texts are depicted fragmentarily in a technique on panels, which change according to the angle of the viewer. Dreyblatt uses lenticular technology as a perceptually interactive means of display. Each work contains up to five text layers, which are viewable as text fragments from varying viewing positions, and which "overwrite" each other as in a "palimpsest". As the viewer moves about the room, varying text content appears and disapears.

"Dossier" expresses the different worlds of experience by bringing together opposing genres of text. This text collage invites visitors to reflect more deeply on the site and the experiences associated with it. The artistic power of the work lies in the reduction to the medium of language in its historical-political context.

The content texts were collected during a preliminary research phase in the extensive archive found on the grounds of the memorial. The final texts are derived from copies of secret police files and personal reminiscences.

Data Projection, Permanent Installation, 2013

Commissioned by the Ravensbrück Memorial (Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück) for the permanent exhibition.

The permanent work is installed in the main entrance and staircase of the Ravensbrück Memorial, so that all visitors can come into contact with a chronicle of the concentration camp from its origins to its liberation.

The projected texts are based on the documentation of the camp SS and reports by former prisoners from the memorial archive. The work visualizes recorded events in the camp, from the everyday to the most important historical moments in chronological chronology.

Texts are based on documentation of the Camp SS and reports by former inmates found in the Memorial Archives. The work is chronological and is running continuously, illustrating the recorded daily events at the camp from the mundane to major historical moments, such as the arrival of inmates, executions, etc.   

As each month is randomly selected by computer software, the dates for which event information is known appear and then scroll both in German and English.

Software Markus Lerner / White Void Berlin

LED Flatpanel Displays, Wood Construction, Text Folio , 2013

Installation was installed in the glass Vitrine of the Deutschen Bank at Kurfürstendamm 29A, Berlin from July 7th until August 2nd 2013. The project was a collaboration between Universität der Künste Berlin, Institut für Kunst im Kontext and the Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, as part of the city project theme for 2013 - "Destroyed Diversity" - Berlin 1933 - 1938 - 1945. With support from Deutsche Bank, Postbank and DM Drogeriemarkt

One often encounters apartment advertisements in the glass display cabinets along the Kurfürstendamm. In a contemporary context, one comes upon a real estate announcement from the 1930's. The apartment contents on offer stand out from the customary commercial setting. The title of the installation ' Eine vornehme Wohnung' is quoted from the a historical auction catalog on the Kurfürstendamm in 1935 by the AFAG (Aktiengesellschaft für Auktionswesen.) The apartment's contents, including furniture and an extensive art collection, had belonged to a Jewish family who had been forced into emigration and deportation. Catalog texts, photos of interiors and personal artifacts have been collected from this and similar auctions by the AFAG between 1934-1938. Inspired by the design of an existing real estate advertisement display in a nearby street Vitrine, Dreyblatt has installed an box-like object within the glass vitrine to announce an upcoming auction event. One peers through ten 'Peepholes' behind which are illuminated fragmentary texts and images: commericial lists of intimate family belongs, auction legalities, art valuations and photographic details which have been cut out and disconnected from their original context. 

"In his work "Eine vornehme Wohnung: ein Angebot" (Exclusive Apartment - On offer) Arnold Dreyblatt finds a way to give immediate presence to an historical event, the auction of a complete household, including furniture, artworks, dishes, cutlery and personal items, which took place in Berlin in the late 1930ties. He succeeds in doing so by displaying the auctioneer's lists of the items in more or less the same manner they probably have been displayed in the historical moment: by advertising techniques in an advertising show-case placed on Berlin's Kurfuerstendamm. However, different to usual advertising, his installation hides partly the content of the vitrine, and - thus triggering the curiosity of the passersby - involves them in what has been a catastrophe for the presumably Jewish family which had to give up its household. By his installation, Arnold Dreyblatt, activates what I address an awareness of history in a given presence, a form of remembering quite different to the common historical consciousness, which reflects on history in a more or less noncommittal way." - Prof. Dr. Michael Fehr

Project Description >>>
"Exclusive Apartment - On offer" >>>

Newsprint, 2011

This work was created especially for the 9/11 (September 11, 2011) Edition of the Berliner Zeitung. It is inspired by the scientific theory of "Flashbulb Memory."

"We have all had the experience that in exceptional moments when startling or shocking news has been heard, the brain seems to store permanently all temporal and visual information as vivid and lasting memories. The Assassination of JFK, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and 9/11 are all examples of this phenomenon. As a born New Yorker, transplanted to Berlin, the actual moment and following hours upon hearing the news of 9/11, remain frozen and imprinted, while the days before and after have long lost their significance." - Arnold Dreyblatt

Dreyblatt's work reflects on such themes as recollection and the archive, and he has created a number of artworks related to autobiographical memory: including the installations "Flashbulb Memory" (2002) and "Recovery Rotation" (2003).

Permanent installation: 16 Lenticular Panels, 110 x 110 cm

Permanently installed in four meetings rooms within the new Ministry of Agriculture, Nutrition and Consumer Protection (BMLEV), Wilhelmstrasse, Berlin, and dedicated in 2010. Winner, 1st Prize, Invited Competition, Federal Ministry for Buldings and Public Spaces (BBR) Berlin, 2008

>>> Museum der 100 Orte Website

Inscriptions is concieved as an interactive textual dialogue with the employees of the Ministirium who will pass through, meet and work in four meeting rooms. Lenticular printing technology was chosen as an perceptually interactive means of display. Each work contains up to five text layers, which are viewable as text fragments from varying viewing positions, and which seem to "overwite" each other as in a "palimpsest". As the viewer moves about the room, different text content appears and disapears, allowing one to 'create' one's own narrative about the history and workings of the BMELV Ministry. In this way the employee should become participants in a dialogue with the work, which can only be 'completed' through movement and reflection.

Text excerpts are chosen as content for the work from the following themes: 
a) the history of the BMELV Ministry; b) the historical and architectural context of the building; c) descriptions of activities and goals relating to the work of the BMELV Ministry; d) historical and contemporary quotations from literature and science on subjects such as agriculture, nutriton, etc.

A theme has been concieved for each of the four meeting rooms: 
1. Wilhelmstr. Nr. 54, history of the building housing the Ministry; 2. Agriculture: texts from Marcus Porcius Cato (234 v. Chr. - 149 v. Chr.), Albrecht Daniel Thaer, (1752 - 1828), Johann Heinrich von Thünen, (1783 -1850) ; 3. Agricultural Politics and Policy in Germany; 4. Consumer Protection 

Permanent Installation, Privalite Glass, Synchronized Data Projections, Computer, Mirror
Commissioned by The Jewish Museum, Berlin and installed in the historical exhibition from 2008 - 2018

The installation consists of a glass wall consisting of eight "Privalite" glass panes (each 2.5 x 1 meter mounted in steel frames), four data projectors and a large mirror mounted in the room. The installation marks a "boundary" at the end of the main exhibition, at the site of the historical representation of the Holocaust. Excerpts from letters, diaries and reports that were written before the deportation and in the ghettos and camps, as well as excerpts from messages from the National Socialist authorities that organised the mass murder, are projected onto the glass wall. Through electricity, the active and inactive Privalite glass panes become transparent or opaque - functioning as a projection surface. The scrolling text moves on the glass wall, disappears, superimposes itself and thus creates a rhythm in the room. The texts are selected and displayed at random.

The glass panels and the projectors were synchronized with the scrolling projected text. There was one projector each for two panels, representing one document fragment. At the moment when a document pair became 'active', the glass became opaque, and the document information (left side) and content information (right side) began 'writing', letter by letter, simultaneously, at eye level. From one to four active states could be happening at any one time.

The mirrored glass mounted on a diagonal wall opens the room and reflects the dynamic movement of the displays and interchangeable panels.

As source material, historical documents were selected from the Museum archives from two sources:
a. Letters from burocratic offices to individuals about preparations for deportation and eventual transports to the east. 
b. The last correspondances from the Ghettos and extermination camps. 

Production: 
Text Preparation and Project Coordination: Maren Krüger; Media Design: Thomas Buck; Media Realisation: White Void, Berlin

Permanent Installation, Sandblasted Two-Way Glass, LED Displays

'Innocent Questions' was the winner of a closed competition initiated by the The National Foundation for Art in Public Buildings, Oslo (Utsmykkingsfondet for offentlige bygg) in 2004 for a permanent artistic work in front the Villa Grande, a villa occupied by Vidkun Quisling from 1941-1945. The Villa is currently the site of the "HL Senteret", The Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities.

In developing a concept for an artistic intervention for the Villa Grande Dreyblatt preferred not be limited by the particular historical circumstances associated with this site. He chose rather to focus on the use of the 'personal questionnaire' in population registration systems as the defining element that thematically connects the Holocaust in Norway with other genocides of the twentieth century and with the administration of foreigners and other minorities in contemporary society.

In Dreyblatt's concept for a permanent installation at the site, a list of 'Innocent Questions,' derived from historical and contemporary sources and representing a composite collective questionnaire, is contrasted with the image of a historical 'punch card.' Together, this is a representation of the collection, archiving and application of personal data by political systems for administrative and often questionable use.

The winter snow and the dramatic approach up the hill to the site call for a vertical installation as a transformation of the imposing and grotesque historical building facade. In renovating and reconstructing the 'Villa Grande,' fire and safety regulations required an external stairwell to be fixed on the facade to the left of the main entrance. I proposed to utilize the structure of the stairwell in order to physically support the installation of "Innocent Questions."

Attached to the structure of the stairwell is an array of twelve panel-boxes, mounted within a steel frame. These panels are designed to form one unified image (size: 8330 x 4070 cm.), which is perceived in three distinct optical layers:
Non-Reflective Image: Sandblasted onto the hardened surface of the outermost glass layer of each panel is a reconstruction of a historical 'punch card' , representing the reduction of the individual to number and category. This image is perceived as non-reflective, creating a heightened contrast to the reflectivity of the underlying mirrored surface.
Reflected Environment: The work functions as a mirrored wall that reflects the natural environment: the trees and sky, and the visiting public. The face of the historical building is thereby opened and partially erased.
Illuminated Texts: Mounted onto the rear of each panel within the punch card image, are words and phrases written in fixed light-emitting diodes (LED's). This textual content has been derived from historical and contemporary personal questionnaires.

The rear of the work is sealed, and the illuminated red LED texts appear as an ephemeral image, suspended in the reflecting mirror. Only the illuminated LED texts are seen through the mirrored glass, which is otherwise fully reflective of the environment. The words and phrases appear and disappear within a slow and randomly generated temporal composition perceived within the virtual punch card image. Because the appearance of illuminated words and phrases is continually changing, new combinations of words and phrases arise, igniting unexpected associations from the questionnaire entries as one passes the work. During the hours of daylight, the mirror glass reflects the trees and sky. The information layers (non-reflective image, reflected environment and illuminated text) are clearly visible. In the hours of darkness, artificial side lighting illuminates the non-reflecting sandblasted surfaces of the outer glass layer, which would otherwise be imperceptible.

Public Art Work >>>
"Innocent Questions" >>>

Permanent Work, Inscribed Text in Stone

A granite plaque, permanently mounted with brass bolts into cement and permanently installed in a school courtyard.  The work was dedicated in December, 2004 on the occasion of the art project "Leerstelle", curated by Galerie Ozwei. A large flower wreath was installed on the stone for the dedication ceremonies and was left to dry for some days before being stolen. The location of the work simulated an isolated grave or memorial area, being framed by a wire fence of DDR-Vintage allowing an unexpected discovery and functioning as a site for contemplation and recollection.

After the GLS Language School moved into the property in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg in 2005, the work was reinstalled to a nearby location, near to ruins from the Berlin Castle. The work was cracked in the process of re-installation.

The stone is engraved with the phrase:
Si Monumentum requiris,
circumspice.
MDCCCLXVII - MMIV

This latin phrase, "If you require a monument, look around you", was inscribed by the son of the architect Sir Christopher Wren at his gravesite in St. Pauls Cathedral in London upon his death in 1723. The dates refer to the lifespan of the schoolyard area, one of the oldest in Berlin.

Permanently Installed:
GLS Language School (formerly Gustav-Eiffel-Schule) in Berlin-Prenzlauer-Berg, 2005.

Workshop and Permanent Installation, 2004

Participation: Art Students from Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee in collaboration with Galerie Ozwei, Berlin

Permanently Installed:
Glass Wall Vitrine, Main Building, First Floor Landing, GLS Language School (formerly Gustav-Eiffel-Schule) in Berlin-Prenzlauer-Berg, 2005.

This workshop and Installation considered as basic material the personal archive of the artist Peter Müller, one of the workshop participants. The archive contains documents, images and artifacts pertaining to the history of the Gustav-Eiffel-Schule and the surrounding historical school property. We were interested in developing an artistic form in which the last inhabitants (teachers, administrators and students) of the soon-to-be abandoned school would be confronted with memory of the surrounding school buildings and property, which has been used for educational purposes since 1867. 

As an exhibition space, we had been given a now-empty vitrine (approx. 4 m x 1 m) permanently built into a wall in a prominent site on the first floor landing of the main school building. Rather than create a pure historical exhibition, I proposed to mix fact and fiction in creating a pseudo-historical narrative which would be made plausible through the traditional methods of museum-like display, and which would reflect the complex emotions and expectations of both an east and west public as well as an east location. 

The group decided on the theme of a school class which was reported to have completely disappeared, possibly for political reasons, in 1961. Great care was taken to support the narrative within the realm of plausibility, utilizing a great reserve of real and fabricated archival material from the time period. Possible resolutions of the narrative were imagined but left open to interpretation. In, December 2004, a small dedication ceremony was held as the work was permanently sealed behind an enormous glass window. Other than a reference to the installation as a result of a workshop under my direction, no indication was given as to the truth or falsity of the display. When the installation was on view during the art project, a minority of outside visitors were greatly irritated by the imagination that a school class had actually disappeared in the GDR.