ERSAN MONDTAG
MONUMENT OF AN UNKNOWN MAN
60. VENICE BIENNIAL / GERMAN PAVILLON 2024, VENICE, ITALY
20 APRIL – 24 NOVEMBER 2024
Ersan Mondtag's contribution to the German Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale is an ark of remembrance for the ghosts of Germany's past, who created the country's prosperity without ever being adequately recognized for it. 
© Image Andrea Rosetti
The elaborate installation tells the story of Ersan Mondtag's grandfather, Hasan Aygün, who came to Berlin in 1962 as a “guest worker” from a village in Anatolia. He worked there for the Eternit company for 28 years. Before he could begin his retirement, he died of a lung disease caused by processing asbestos products.
© Image Andrea Rosetti
Different stages and aspects of Hasan Aygün's biography are transformed on three levels in the teardrop-shaped clay building. The installation, with its many biographical and poetic details, the dusty and gloomy atmosphere, forms the stage for a performance of the family’s experiences up to the of the grandfather´s death. It is a story of a struggeling life in cramped conditions and it is condensed into a silent theater with absurd features.
© Photo Thomas Aurin
The large mound of earth that covers the main entrance to the German Pavilion is a multi-layered metaphor for the barriers and denied access to society that the people brought to Germany to work had to face. It creates an experience in which visitors can only reach the foreign land and the space of their longings via the “servants’ entrance” - often associated with waiting lines, much like the “guest workers” in Germany experienced, for example when dealing with authorities. With this multi-layered and magical “monument to an unknown man”, Ersan Mondtag’s contribution corrects the categorical invisibility of an entire class of people in German post-war society: the working population, largely brought in from countries like Turkey, who were seen by the public at best, as a “problem”. The installation also builds a subtle bridge to the workers in the GDR, who were glorified in propaganda, but whose living conditions and lack of freedom were similarly ignored – before and after 1989.