Rosemarie Trockel in "Tell me about yesterday tomorrow" at Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism

Tell me about yesterday tomorrow

An exhibition by the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism on the future of the past

November 28, 2019 – August 30, 2020

Frankfurter Engel, 1994

Replica 2019, Quartz sand, H 2.5 m

“Frankfurter Engel” is a replica of a cenotaph by Rosemarie Trockel that has been displayed in downtown Frankfurt since 1994 to remind people of the persecution and murder of homosexual women and men under National Socialism. The sculpture is based on an “angel with a banderole” that originally adorned the west portal of Cologne Cathedral as a neo-Gothic gable figure. All that remains of the original is a plaster cast with broken wings, which Trockel was able to reproduce using wax casting. She severed the angel’s head and reattached it at a slight angle so that the fracture point remains visible as a scar. With this slight anomaly, the androgynous figure reminds people of the irreparable damage that resulted from persecution by the National Socialist regime. The angel is a messenger and informant as well as a guardian angel for the victims, and reminds people that “men who love men and women who love women can always be persecuted.”

All images: Rosemarie Trockel, Frankfurter Engel, 1994 | Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers, © Rosemarie Trockel – VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2019, sourced on the website of Tell me about yesterday tomorrow