In January 2023, the village of Lützerath, a hotspot of the international
climate movement in Germany, was destroyed by the energy company RWE
in collaboration with state authorities and the police, contrary to the federal
government’s recommendation from the previous year. Furthermore, the
extraction of the underlying lignite coal was authorized despite all scientific
findings and recommendations to the contrary. Following our final
art intervention on-site, conducted during the winter eviction and demolition,
we decided to create a comprehensive painterly record of the times.
This work encompasses both the diverse encounters and experiences
from our solidarity-based art interventions within the 1.5-degree climate
movement over the past five years, starting with the resistance in the
Hambach Forest in 2018 and a contemporary artistic composition that
seeks to capture this highly charged, complex issue of our time.
Thus, during the first six months of 2023, this arguably unique painterly
record came into being, a “history painting,” as Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Becker
(founding director of the Ludwig Forum Aachen) described it
when discussing the work.(The physical dimensions of the painting
are also remarkable: 260 cm in height and 810 cm in width.)
Our multi-layered, diverse, and immediate on-site experiences
undoubtedly form a unique foundation for such a painting.
We have attached various detail photos, hoping that this will allow you
to better explore the complexities of this massive painting on your screen.
