Kunsthaus Graz

Even high walls cannot separate everything

Children reading letters from political prisoners - video still from a work by Gabriela Golder(Bild: Gabriele Golder)

Last year, the Kunsthaus Graz celebrated its 20th birthday. To mark the occasion, Sol LeWitt's monumental work "Wall" was also rebuilt and has been presented with contemporary positions for months. For the finale of "@Sol LeWitt's Wall. Performed", Argentinian artist Gabriela Golder presents two touching video works there. 

"I'm doing well here. Do you often play soccer with grandpa?" These are normal sentences that any parent could send their children in a letter from their vacation. However, the letters that Argentinian artist Gabriela Golder uses for her video work "Letters" are not harmless vacation mail. They are letters that political prisoners of the Argentinian military dictatorship wrote to their families between 1975 and 1983.

Trauma and normality
The trauma of persecution and imprisonment can be clearly read from them - but even more so, they reveal an attempt to maintain a sense of normality even beyond the walls of political persecution: "I was touched by how much the letters emphasize not the suffering, but the few joyful moments in life - a warm cup of tea, a ray of sunshine. The letters are imbued with the attempt to maintain relationships with the outside world despite all the obstacles," the artist tells the "Krone".

Gabriela Golder at the Grazer Kunsthaus(Bild: UMJ/J.J.Kucek)

Today's children between the ages of 8 and 12 read these letters for Golder's video installation - giving the work more than a purely historical significance: "In terms of age, the children could be the grandchildren of the people who once wrote these letters," explains Golder, thereby also addressing the transgenerational effects of such experiences and the traumas that accompany them. "For me, such things are never really over, but keep coming back as if in an endless loop," says Golder.

The poetry of the sky
The second work she is currently showing at the Kunsthaus also fits in with this: During the corona pandemic, she made videos of the sky and used them to feed an AI that created poetic and appealing texts to accompany them. This work also shows the attempt to stay in contact with the "world out there" despite all obstacles and to keep communication alive by all means. 

Gabriela Golder's works can be seen at the Grazer Kunsthaus until June 9.