Danish artist Marco Evaristti who is a Chilean born Buddhist convert with Jewish parents, has built a sculpture commemorating the horrors of the Auschwitz Nazi Camp, in which he is reported to have used teeth and gold fillings. The work was exhibited for the 65th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation. Some parts of the 2.3kg sculpture were built from enamel and gold fillings from teeth that he brought from Austria from a person who claimed they came from the Nazi death camp. Of course, he himself could not confirm the certainty of the claim. He has also used three teeth from his Jewish grandmother, who did not die in a concentration camp. In an attempt to signify that time cannot erase the past, he has made use of diamonds too since ‘diamonds are forever.’ The exhibition also includes rails and a train carriage in white gold with 11 karat diamonds. In the carriage, sculls of red gold are looking out of the window.
His intention to create such a controversial work was to relate to all the world’s atrocities, which many tend to forget. He also expressed a desire to unite some of the world’s most beautiful things with some of the meanest and the most macabre.
The artwork did not create much controversy in Denmark, but many found it in bad taste outside. Apparently, the artwork was briefly displayed during an Arts exhibition in Berlin in 2008, where it wasn’t taken too well by the local masses. Evaristti has sustained a reputation of ‘insensitivity’ for many of his provocative works, one of which was the display at a Danish gallery, inviting visitors to turn on blenders filled with Goldfish.
[Balder]
