Critic Defends Schneider's Deathbed Installation

The German feuilletonists were quick to react negatively to Gregor Schneider's proposal to create an artwork showing someone on their deathbead, opines Brigitte Werneburg in the Tageszeitung. Werneburg reminds readers that Schneider is not the first to attempt to capture death with art. She cites Bill Viola and Sophie Calle, who both made films about the death of a parent. For Werneburg, Schneider—who is looking for a willing volunteer—is closer to Joseph Beuys, albeit "the Big Brother Version" of Beuys's social sculpture. Werneburg notes another similarity with German history: Schneider was born in Rheydt, just like Joseph Goebbels, "a master not only of propaganda but also self-propaganda." Haus Lange Museum in Krefeld, Germany, where the artist proposed to create his work, declined to comment. According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, German politicians, the Protestant Church, and the National Association of German Undertakers are all indignant over the proposal.

Yet there may be some bright news for Schneider's morbid project. TheFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Andreas Rossmann reports that Father Friedhelm S. J. Mennekes, who led Cologne's Artstation St. Peter from 1981 until recently, believes that it's "not taboo" to think about death. In fact, in 2006, Father Mennekes recalls having lengthly conversations with an artist about doing an exhibition "in this sphere." "The question of exhibiting a dead person was posed at that time," Father Mennekes told the FAZ. "We took distance because it was too close to the church and we believed that it belongs in the museum." He sees the museum as a parallel space to the church "for reflecting and thinking" that is predestined to debate "the existential perspectives of meaning of man."