Annette Kelm

Archival pigment prints, 100.6 x 79 cm

In her series of photographs titled Recyclingpark Neckartal, Annette Kelm studies a relic of Nazi architecture hidden in the periphery of Stuttgart. Wedgedbetween a recycling center and a waste incineration power plant stand 14 travertine columns that the Nazi regime commissioned from Stuttgart’s Lauster quarry in the 1930s. Despite their colossal proportions, they are barely noticeable today, in the shadow of the enormous garbage incineration plant. The columns were originally intendedfor a monumental Mussolini memorial to be built as part of Albert Speer’s planned global capital “Germania,” on Adolf-Hitler-Platz (now Theodor-Heuss-Platz), in Berlin. Plans for the project were scuttled by the war, and the columns were never moved. They still stand today as a testament to Nazi megalomania and the ideals of political power reflected in Nazi urban architecture.

Archival pigment prints, 52 x 70 cm

The Verbrannte Bücher (Burned Books) series presents photographs of a copies of literary works that were banned for being “un-German” and publicly burned by the Nazis in 1933. Kelm acknowledges these works as “survivors” and points out that after the disappearance of contemporary witnesses, objects acquire a special significance for collective memory. Alongside authors such as Else Lasker-Schüler, Erich Kästner and Stefan Zweig, Kelm’s 24 images also highlight lesser-known authors. Evenly lighted and centrally placed, Kelm establishes an equal status between the authors and their works in her photographic portraits and captures the modern style and design, a movement that was disrupted when the Nazi regime came to power.