In his final thesis "Ross und Reiter", Maximilian Graf deals with the two Rossebändiger statues by the sculptor Josef Wackerle, which have been exhibited unchanged in front of the Kassel Federal Social Court since their installation in 1936, and whose different traces of weathering represent a material antithesis to the promises of eternity of the National Socialist ideology that produced them.
The ensemble created will be on public display in front of Kassel's Federal Social Court from December 5 to December 20, 2024 and, in terms of content, moves between its own reflection on the patriarchal past and the confrontation of National Socialist ideology in public space, which is still taking place in Kassel today, sometimes unchanged. This production of the physical intactness of the "Aryan" tamer and his horse in the National Socialist sense carries the ideology further into the freely accessible space in front of the building of a democratic institution, just as the architecture of the courthouse does - with far less clarity.
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