Das Institut im Glaspavillon
zeigt / will be showing

Josef Strau

the tabernacle on rosa-luxemburg-platz

Eröffnung am Samstag, 22. September
Opening Saturday, September 22
19 h / 7 pm

each year there is a day to commemorate the escape from slavery and subjugation. actually there are more days for celebrating this, but there is probably only one day which celebrates the period directly after independence is regained, when material loss means nothing compared to the force of independence. this day is the day of the tabernacles. the tabernacles are the little huts with a minimum amount of physical protection, built as quickly as possible, dedicated to the life without burdens of property and slave labour, made as yearly reminders of the pleasures of eating, drinking, reading and talking together and having abandoned house, home and a life of oppression. the original event was the exodus from egypt and the huts were made during the years of travelling across the desert.
the exhibition was scheduled to open on september 22nd, which happened to be yom kippur, the day of atonement. yom kippur’s original aim is to once a year forget about troubles and bad moods with others and return these relations to a good or at least normal mood. as well it has the power to absolve you of all self-imposed promises and resolutions, which have begun to torture you, and as well and more importantly of oaths and promises you give to social groups for short advantage, but which create obligations and dependencies for you. the main song on the day of atonement is “col nidre”. it can help to regain your independence, or in some cases, even liberate you, beforehand, of next year’s promises. “col nidre” became very important to many of the jewish people, who were forced often under torture to convert to catholicism. so when evening begins and yom kippur has come to an end, you are ready to start building the sukka, the hut of the celebration of tabernacles. This year, this evening falls on sept 22nd and the hut should be ready by the thursday after, so we can leave our house and move in for a week.
first it was planned to build a real size tabernacle hut for the rosa-luxemburg-platz and its neighbourhood - and to build one in complete accordance with all its beautiful rules. In a collective effort a few people would build it quickly and without losing much time for aesthetic considerations or even worse for considerations of taste. it was supposed that it would have provided a place for meeting, as well as given space to the almost iconoclastic spirit of this symbolic event. but the actual procedure, both the building of this kind of non-building, a building against building, as well as the practical use of this little sub-pavilion has to be delayed for another year. instead, hastily assembled sukkot-related text information and a little model of its possible form will be presented as an introduction in the institut in the pavilion next to volksbühne, rosa-luxemburg-platz.