The magnificent building was set on fire by the Nazis on November 10, 1938, and later demolished. Kuball's work "missing link_" brings the gap into consciousness. Realized last year as a temporary project, the work will now be implemented as a permanent installation. The official handover of the installation to the city of Düsseldorf will take place on Saturday, November 9, 2024, at 10:30 PM in the presence of Mayor Dr. Stephan Keller and the artist Mischa Kuball.
The Great Synagogue on Kasernenstraße, built in the style of Neo-Romanesque by church architect Josef Kleesattel and consecrated in 1904, was one of the culminations of Jewish life in Düsseldorf. Not only services took place here – the central building was also the venue for concerts and public lectures. SA men, who initially devastated the interior and then set the synagogue on fire, put a barbaric end to this venerable tradition. Today, merely a memorial plaque commemorates the magnificent building.
With his work "missing link_", Mischa Kuball aims to remind and permanently anchor the synagogue in memory through the means of contemporary art. "The installation uses white light and a fragment of the old architecture to create enlightenment and visibility at this location." The artwork is "also an attempt to provide people a more dignified place for communal gatherings after this loss." As a complement, one can download their own app that makes information, historical images, and eyewitness reports accessible.
Mischa Kuball, who was born in 1959 in Düsseldorf, is ideally suited for the project at the corner of Kasernenstraße / Siegfried-Klein-Straße. He has been working in public space since 1977. Using the medium of light, he explores social and political discourses. Kuball has repeatedly engaged with Jewish history and the Holocaust artistically. The professor for Public Art at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences for Media has realized projects such as "res.o.nant" (Jewish Museum Berlin), "greenlight" (in the former Jewish Quarter of Montevideo), and "refraction house" (in the Stommeln synagogue).
