Buttenhausen “Imprints and Artifacts”
Maps, Hands and a Golem

When I first arrived in Buttenhausen in 1996, I came with presuppositions and felt that a golem would be useful in the community. I photographed the making of a golem from leaves and earth on the hill outside the Jewish cemetery in Buttenhausen and the golem‘s entering into Buttenhausen. However, subsequent experience in Buttenhausen altered my impression of an appropriate artistic response, and in December I photographed the return of the golem to the earth.

When I returned to Buttenhausen in December of 1996, I worked for several days in the Stadtarchiv in Münsingen. Because I do not speak German, I had to restrict my research to visual materials: historical photographs. I found two aerial photos of Buttenhausen: one taken on September 13, 1938 (before Kristallnacht) and the other taken on May 15, 1976. Each photo was small enough to fit in my hand. The main difference between the two photos taken 38 years apart is that the earlier one had a synagogue and the later had a grassy spot with a small marker where the synagogue had stood.

A hand imprint is remarkably similar to an aerial photograph. Photography can make something large and something small be of equal size. On my first trip to Buttenhausen, the image of a hand kept reappearing. Mr. Ott working with his hands to restore the Jewish cemetery, the hands carved on the Jewish tombstones, the hands around the base of the memorial monument at Grafeneck, the fingerprints used on identity cards, the hands used for writing, and the handwriting on the post office table in the museum in Buttenhausen.

I wanted to make a portrait without using a face. Hands are a kind of map, perhaps showing our past and our future.

I began my work by taking plaster impressions of the hands of the Christians and Jews involved in the reconciliation work in Buttenhausen. From these plaster impressions, I made bronze castings, drawings, etchings and photographs.

The original hands that I cast were those of Walter Ott, Harry and Thea Lindauer, Herbert Weippert, Dietrich Sachs, Gunther Wruck, Roland Deigendesch, Jürgen vom Grafen, Otmar Gotterbarm, and Christine Schmitt. Each of these individuals has taken an active hand in preserving and understanding Buttenhausen‘s past and present.