Leon Kahane

Video, ca. 20 min
Inkjet prints, 110 x 165 cm
Ink on paper, 15 x15 cm

The Cité de la Muette modernist apartment complex in Drancy, France, was built as a social housing project between 1932 and 1934. The complex was seized by the German Wehrmacht in 1940; from 1941 to 1944 it served as an internment camp for most of France’s Jews before they were deported to Auschwitz. Kahane’s Jewish grandmother was imprisoned in the camp, which was known for its abysmal conditions. “Pitchipoï” was an imaginary term, presumably used in the camp, for the place that ostensibly awaited the Jewish prisoners after their deportation. The term was invented as a way to compensate for the unimaginable, as the Nazis told the prisoners nothing of where they were going or what would happen to them. The artist visited the building, which is now being used as a housing complex again, and shot video footage there. Using his documentation of the architecture, which was designed by such influential figures as Jean Prouvé as the lead engineer, Kahane explores how this place, originally designed as a progressive project for the common good, was turned into its exact opposite by the Nazis. By exploring the facades and physical structures, he tries to trace the tragic appropriation of a modern idea by its opponents. At the same time, he documents how the history of the Cité de la Muette is handed down at a remembrance site initiated by survivors.