FLAKTURME DOWN
In the last years of II WW Nazis built in the center of Vienna six huge concrete bunkers, "Flaktürme", where anti-aircraft guns were placed. After the end of the war, these bulky presences became a sort of uncomfortable memory for inhabitants: too well-built to be destroyed without erasing the centre of the town and totally useless for any public purpose too. A peculiar historical scar for Vienna landscape, with its people wanting, in vain, to get rid of it.
Antonio Riello builds perfect models (scale 1:20) of the Wiener Flaktürme (using only sugar lumps), the six towers (height about 2,5 m) are hosted in the main rectangular room of Kunsthalle Wien Project Space at Karlsplatz. From the opening party, visitors can destroy at long last, piece by piece, the outstanding symbols of a era and take away, some pieces (lumps) of sugar, as special relic or “artistic souvenir”. A great amount of special little hammers are available as tools.Like a sort of contemporary kind Bastille of Paris or Wall of Berlin, people are be able to revenge History, this time interacting in an artistic context. After few days of the sugar towers, only a little bit of ruins and debris are just visible. Even possible bring, as a souvenir, at homesome sugar lumps.