Shalechet – Fallen Leaves. The Jewish Museum in Berlin

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Museum Architecture and Exhibition Design SHALECHET – FALLEN LEAVES. THE JEWISH MUSEUM IN BERLIN. Introduction The relation between the tourist experience and museums Public who are interested in art are keen on visiting museums and having such a memorable experience. Nowadays with the increase number of museums and its topics it was necessarily needed to add some creativity to the art exhibitions and to try to find a way not just to show the art but to communicate and interact art with the visitors.

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Interactivity has often been used to promote both learning and entertaining experience in exhibits, McLean (1993: p. 93) defines interactive exhibits as ‘those in which visitors can conduct activities, gather evidence, select options, form conclusions, test skills, provide input, and actually alter a situation based on input’.

Interactivity helps people to assimilate new information with existing conceptual structures in their mind , also increase visitors’ engagement with the exhibit as well as the time spend there. Interactivity has 4 main elements: Museum architecture or environment which surrounds the exhibit , exhibit design which include the artwork, the artwork itself and the visitors’ interaction /experience or exhibit experience.

Figure 1: Overview of factors influencing visitors’ exhibit experiences. (Stimulating visitor experience in museum exhibits dealing with the micro world Harm H. van Netten, 0442038 45 ECTS Supervisor UU: Dirk-Jan Boerwinkel Supervisor Naturalis: Caroline Breunesse) Also what people remember from their museum visit can be depending on factors such as the feelings and emotions that they felt with during their visit. These feelings can be felt during the interaction between the visitor and the exhibition.

In the Jewish museum basement floor there is an exhibition called Shaleket “ Fallen Leaves”, and this is the one that had been discussed in this essay. Jewish Museum “ the wider context which include the exhibition The first Jewish Museum in Berlin was established 1933, few days before the Nazis officially gained powered authority,. In addition to curating Jewish history, it also featured collections of Jewish art. The current Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin) was opened in 2001 and is considered the largest Jewish museum in Europe. It consists of three buildings, two of which are new additions specifically built for the museum by architect Daniel Libeskind who uses space, darkness and voids to create an unsettling experience German-Jewish history is documented in the collections, the library and the archive, and is reflected in the museum's program of events.

The museum is one of Germany’s most frequented museums (more than 10.8 million visitors between 2001 and 2016). https://www.jmberlin.de/en/shalekhet-fallen-leaves he Jewish Museum Berlin is located in what was West Berlin before the fall of the Wall. [11] Essentially, it consists of two buildings – a baroque old building, the “Kollegienhaus” (that formerly housed the Berlin Museum) and a new, deconstructivist-style building by Libeskind. The two buildings have no visible connection above ground. The Libeskind building, consisting of about 161,000 square feet (15,000 square meters), is a twisted zig-zag and is accessible only via an underground passage from the old building. For Libeskind, “The new design, which was created a year before the Berlin Wall came down, was based on three conceptions that formed the museum’s foundation: first, the impossibility of understanding the history of Berlin without understanding the enormous intellectual, economic and cultural contribution made by the Jewish citizens of Berlin, second, the necessity to integrate physically and spiritually the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness and memory of the city of Berlin. Third, that only through the acknowledgement and incorporation of this erasure and void of Jewish life in Berlin, can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future.”[13] A line of "Voids," empty spaces about 66 feet (20 m) tall, slices linearly through the entire building. Such voids represent "That which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin history: Humanity reduced to ashes.”[10][12][14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum,_Berlin Many art installations exhibited permanently in the museum are by Arnold Dreyblatt, Minka Hauschild, and Via Lewandowsky.

One of these permanent installations there include the Holocaust Tower, a bare, concrete tower with no heating and light only coming from a small slit in the roof. You can hear the outside world as you stand in this tall, concrete tower, knowing that escape is visible but impossible. Fallen Leaves installation, Why? It is a powerful symbolic art installation in the Jewish Museum Berlin , displayed in one of empty “voided” spaces in the museum The display was designed by Israeli artist Menashe Kadisman . 10 000 faces were cut coarsely from heavy circular steel and distributed on the ground of the Memory Void. Kadishman dedicated his artwork not only to Jews killed during the Shoah, but to all victims of violence and war. Visitors are invited to walk on the faces and listen to the sounds created by unsettling metallic clinks , as they clang and rattle against one another. The installation is really amazing for simplicity. The pieces of steel were thrown on the ground and are therefore wobbly. The spectators are invited to walk on the faces which produce then atrocious metallic noises , which one cannot refrain from comparing to shouts and screams of the war victims. The fact that the faces are unidentifiable is an important part of the walk. Representing a time when humanitarianism was the farthest thing from a priority, we are reminded of how Jews were stripped of identity, reduced to a number. They become an object to walk on and to kick around. Installation of a rare intelligence and sobriety, like all that touches on the Jewish question, the memory of the Holocaust Each piece clearly relates to our not-so-distant history of WWII.

It is easy to see the connection between the unidentifiable faces and those victims of internment camps. But the artist Kadishman does not want the visitors to limit our interpretation of this piece to the Holocaust only. The work is meant to represent all who have died because of violence and war, the souls of yesteryear, today, and the future. This is one of those artworks that hits home hard. It forces you to take a moment to reevaluate the world we live in. To ejoy the installation you have to walk through Kadishman’s Fallen Leaves. https://www.sartle.com/artwork/fallen-leaves-menashe-kadishman The artist Israeli painter and sculptor Menashe Kadishman who explored nature and memory. Kadishman was born in Tel Aviv to Bilha, a teacher and painter, and Ben Zion Kadishman, an industrial worker and sculptor, who emigrated from Ukraine in the early 1920s, he has died aged 82. In 1959 Kadishman went to London to study at St Martin’s School of Art, at the time the hub of the New Generation of British sculptors led by Anthony Caro. After a year or so he moved to the Slade School of Art and studied with Reg Butler. In 1965 he married Tamara Alferoff, a British psychotherapist, and they had two children, Ben and Maya. In 1972, they separated and he returned to Israel. His career prospered in the following years, both in Israel and internationally The many works produced by the Kadishman, often surprised and provoked, blurring the boundaries between art and non-art. In 1997, the round, open-mouthed faces, made from iron, that had been part of his previous works were accumulated and spread on a gallery floor in Tel Aviv, with the title Shalechet – Hebrew for fallen leaves. This work grew and was exhibited elsewhere, culminating in a permanent installation of 20,000 pieces in Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. As many people said walking on the metal heads – as there is no other way of seeing it – is an unforgettable experience. In 1995 he was awarded his country’s highest honour, the Israel Prize. Fallen Leaves Installation elements 1- Features of the Architecture of the place ‘Memory Void ‘” How the architecture and display related?’

How do architecture/exhibition design influence your perception of the exhibition? The installation of the Fallen leaves took place in the ‘Memory Void’ in the new building of the museum Libeskind ‘the designer of the building’ created “voids” to symbolize the history and humanity lost as a result of the Holocaust.He explains that the voids represent “what can never be exhibited.” He created five voids – angular openings – in the Jewish Museum Berlin. Three of the voids are inaccessible. The visitor can only look into them through slit-like windows. The two accessible voids are: The Void of Voidness is an unheated tower with the only light emanating from a narrow slit in the roof. The other accessible void is the Void of Memory with the Fallen Leaves installation. The memory void is a huge room of bare concrete grey walls of more than 20m high, no light to make the vision unclear .Only a far small opening at the higher top of the wall just entering a small amount of daylight and natural warm. This weak lightning adds a dull vision and it become less and less when you go along the way till you reach the end of it with a totally dark area of 2 meters. It looks like a dark grave that swallows the screamed victims. Also the place is cooler than the rest of the museum, that increasing the uncomfortableness during the experience. 2- iron screaming carved faces About 10.000 flat iron metallic disks. The disks are pressed nearly round in the shape of faces that had open mouths.They were carved with only the main features of the human faces ,no other artistic features, simple crude cutouts for two eyes a long carve for the nose and a mouth. The faces are expressionless except of screaming and crying silently. This was illustrated by the carve of the sad eyes and the contorted open mouths. The pieces are not in same size, they are all ranging between small which is about 11 ×14 cm and large pieces of about 35×25 cm. They all have the same color, the ironic dark black. Many pieces have brown color on the edges because of the iron corrosion. https://www.urbangallery972.com/en/artists/modern-international/item/1278-shalechet-fallen-leaves 3- the Interpretation “walking on it” The interpretation here between the visitors and the installation has no big effort or guidelines instructions. Just ‘walk’ on the pile of screaming iron faces. Each step you go further you will feel what the artist want the visitor to feel. Sadness, annoying and remembrance of all innocent war victims who suffered a lot all over history and till now. The walk itself is not difficult to do, but it is not easy. The iron pieces are not steady so the visitors are walking slowly. Also because of the expressions on the faces and the loud echoed clanging voices coming from hitting and pressing the iron pieces under visitors’ feet. Museum elements: Lightning Natural light only comes from an opening at the top of the wall of the void, no use of artificial light Hierarchy However it is only one installation of one topic , but the artist creates an invisible hierarchy, beginning from the hesitation and standing still infront of the screaming faces and thinking “ should I do that or not?Then To take a decision to walk on the ironic pieces slowly and carefully , taking careful steps .After that walking all the way throw these faces and leading to the dark ending that looks like a grave.The artist made a hierarchy but not in the installed art but in the visitor experience itself. Colors used Concrete Grey dull color and dark black for the faces Visitors interaction and comments Methods to be able to judge the success of an exhibit by observing the extent to which visitors engage with the exhibit, in order to find out whether visitors do what they are hoped to do (Ansbacher, 2000). In addition, visitors’ opinions and ideas on the exhibit are needed to know the effect of the installation on visitors’ experience (Griffin et al., 2005). Some methods can be used to understand more about the visitors’ experience such as observations, questionnaires and interviews. Here the self-observation was used twice on my visit day. Observations were made of visitors for approximately one hour in two different times. The first observation was during the morning at 10 am and the other was at afternoon before leaving at 3pm. During the observation hour, all visitors entering the exhibit room were different types students, teenagers, adults and elderly with different sex and age.

As some visitors are standing there seeing the installation for the first time, the sounds of unsettling metallic clinks against the wall, leading to a very intrusive but powerful experience to everyone. In the beginning there was a few minutes of un-understanding and hesitation. However, as some people started to walk, many people started staring at them. Some of them preferred not to walk as it is disrespectful to walk across them, but as many people understood that is how you are supposed to feel and that is what the artist intended, many of them started walking. (Stimulating visitor experience in museum exhibits dealing with the micro world Harm H. van Netten, 0442038 45 ECTS Supervisor UU: Dirk-Jan Boerwinkel Supervisor Naturalis: Caroline Breunesse) Evaluating the personal experience To me the most powerful installation in the Jewish museum was the fallen leaves, displayed in one of several empty “voided” spaces in the museum. the bare Memory Void runs through the entire building. The lightning emanates only from a small slit at the top of the space, and the ground is covered with the iron heavy disks.The faces symbolize those lost during the Holocaust as well as the victims of war and violence in general It was really hard for me to deal with the feelings stirred up by this installation.the sound of the iron faces clanging together added to my senses a feeling of fear and anxiety, it was physically unconfortable to walk on these iron plates, as it was not stable , like walking on uneven pile of rocks , it is not a flat surface , but many ups and downs that made me walk slowly. Also it was نفسيا unconfortable to walk on imaginary faces, looking up towards the sky screaming for help , or crying for their losses. I felt their look up towards me , that made me felt sad, I didn’t want to cry of sadness, or shout of angry. I can describe what I felt by a deep depression and quite sadness.

That reminds me with all the war victims who are crying for help. The exhibition reveals the strong need for peaceful future which to me was represented by the living visitors who are wearing colored clothes and have faces full of living expressions not just “screaming crying metallic fixed dark faces”. I had a bad week afterwards feeling annoyed and sad. For me this experience is going to be a part of my long-term memory. They seem to be wailing in agony. We stand above them, grinding them into the earth beneath our feet, making the viewer an active culprit. To me, this appears to be an uncomfortable reminder that the human mind can easily be manipulated into committing the worst atrocities, even if it’s not who we think we are. A necessary evil in a sense, but still, it's hard to deal with the feelings stirred up by this installation. It’s an essential testament to the horrors of the humanity and to those who have fallen from shameless brutality. Kadishman started this piece in 1997 and it has yet to be completed. It's located in the Memory Void in the Jewish Museum Berlin. Architect Daniel Libeskind designed the museum with multiple empty spaces, or voids, to represent the absence of Jewsfrom German society. This is one of the two voids that you can actually enter and walk through...if you dare https://www.sartle.com/artwork/fallen-leaves-menashe-kadishman Conclusion Experience is becoming more and more important in museum exhibits. As we can say that interactivity became an important characteristic of an exhibit. In some interactive exhibits, clear instructions, preferably in multiple ways, are necessary to ensure visitors can experience the exhibit the way it was designed, but here the simplicity of interaction was the key of enjoying it. Just few steps forward on the metallic screaming faces was enough to deliver all the feelings which the artist want the visitor to experience.The installation had several تفسيرات, and توحىwith many ideas .One can be seen as you are living the experience of tortured souls seeing and hearing them screaming .You can imagine that they are just expressing their feelings or they may crying for help.

Another explanation can be they seem to be wailing in agony. We stand above them, grinding them into the earth beneath our feet, making the viewer an active culprit. To me as a visitor, this appears to be an uncomfortable reminder that the human mind can easily be manipulated into committing the worst atrocities, even if it’s not who we think we are. The fact that the faces are unidentifiable is probably the easiest part of the walk. It was good not to feel personal guilty and go with the experience further than an interpretation museum experience, to be a guilty based relationship with the victims. This ‘unidentification’ represent a time when humanitarianism was the farthest thing from a priority, we are reminded of how Jews and other اعراق were stripped of identity, reduced to a number. Victims become an object to walk on and to kick around. The metal piece represent the screaming face of unknown victim clearly relates to our not-so-distant history of WWII. It is easy to see the connection between the unidentifiable faces and those victims of internment camps. But Kadishman does not want us to limit our interpretation of this piece to the Holocaust. The work is meant to represent all who have died because of violence and war https://www.sartle.com/artwork/fallen-leaves-menashe-kadishman Stimulating visitor experience in museum exhibits dealing with the micro world Harm H. van Netten, 0442038 45 ECTS Supervisor UU: Dirk-Jan Boerwinkel Supervisor Naturalis: Caroline Breunesse)