Fotoeins Fotografie

Above/featured: Permanent exhibition of a sculptural installation inside a former tram shed. Photo, 10 May 2026 (P).

Inside a period of 30 minutes, I’m the only visitor to a special art installation in the German city of Weimar. I’ve come to witness a silent concert in a living memory of millions.

The sculptural installation “Concert for Buchenwald” by German artist Rebecca Horn is highly regarded as an important representation of the Holocaust in German contemporary art. Inaugurated 9 November 1999, Horn’s art work is housed in one of the former sheds for the city’s former streetcars in the Elektrizitätswerk (E-Werk) complex.

The location of Horn’s installation was always deliberate. In the fog of post-war attempts to reconstruction and resolution, some tried to separate in moral terms the art and architectural heritage in Weimar from the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the Buchenwald concentration camp in the hills 7 km northwest from the city centre. Not only do various elements of the art work make connections regarding memory of the individual, physical, and temporal, they also confront the viewer with the question of personal and historical connections between Weimar and Buchenwald which go farther than mere geographical proximity. Horn’s art work was purchased in 2002 for Klassik Stiftung Weimar as a permanent installation.

Rebecca Horn was a renowned multimedia artist who focussed on installation pieces, studies of body shapes and extensions, kinetic arrangements and their interactions with the spaces they inhabited. Horn died in 2024 at the age of 80 in Germany’s Bad König in the Odenwald forest region where she was born and raised.

… Immer noch schlafen Körper, die Geigen auf den Gleisen warten geduldig auf den Transport ihrer Erlösung. Der Wagen fährt über den Hals einer Geige, im Zerbersten erklingt leise ein Ton.

… Bodies as violins lie sleeping on the track and wait patiently for transport to their fate. The wagon rolls over the neck of a violin, its shatter releasing a faint sound.

– Rebecca Horn

Around the corner (P).

An old tram shed as part of the E-Werk Weimar (P).

Silence in an oppressive atmosphere inside the dimly lit shed (P).

The room is enclosed by two glass walls filled with grey ash from the Odenwald forest. The yellow lights cast a greenish glow on the stratified layers of ash. The ash symbolizes the annihilation of Jews and their culture and the systematic erasure of every individual who perished. Next to the left wall is a small section of railway track upon which used musical instruments and leather cases are piled. At the end of the track is a small wooden wagon that travels a short distance to the end of the shed (P).

Sourced from the Odenwald where she was born and raised, Horn collected forest ash which fills the space next to the walls along the length of the shed (X).

Used guitars, mandolins, and violins from contemporary sources; broken instruments never to be played again (X).

Small wagon from Buchenwald (X).

1m49s video (P). A small wooden wagon glides on a short track to the end of the shed. An audible crack signals the wagon’s contact with a metal plate, closing an electrical circuit and forming a bright blue-white spark which travels upwards through two glass tubes. The unsettling sounds in the silence are the rolling wagon, contact, and ignition of the spark. Enclosed by ash in both walls, it’s not difficult to think of the crematoria in the death camps.

Outside E-Werk: “After I die, I close my eyes, but they keep opening again and again.” (P)

Getting here

Public transport with VMT transport authority: from Weimar Hauptbahnhof (central station), hop onto bus 1, 2, 3, or 9 in the direction “Goetheplatz” to stop “Friedensstrasse/Atrium”. The walk from the bus stop to E-Werk is about 1 km (0.6 mile). During spring and summer, the former tram shed housing Horn’s installation is open Sundays and Mondays from 11am to 5pm; admission is free.

SEE ALSO: SIMsKultur (in English) and 100 Schätze (by Klassik Stiftung in German).

( View this location on Open Street Map )

I received no pre- or during-visit support and no post-visit compensation for this piece. I made all media above on 10 May 2026 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (X) and an iPhone15 (P). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-yZY. Last edit: 30 Oct 2026.

Addendum

Accompanying the installation “Konzert für Buchenwald” is a poem composed by Horn:

Konzert für Buchenwald

Buchenwald eine abrasierte Schädeldecke
die Genickschussanlage getarnt in einem hölzernen Messstab
das Halswirbelorakel
keine Vögel auf dem Berg,
kein Laut,

die Toten sind in Angst verbunden,
bilden eine bleierne Hautglocke,
die über Weimar hängt

auch Bäume wollen hier nicht wachsen,
als ob die Energie vom Innern der Erde aufgesaugt,
durch Steine den Grundriss des Lagers beschwert.

In Polen gab man Gefangenen ein Beil,
schickte sie in den Wald,
um einen Baum zu fällen
stehend mussten sie den Baum umklammern
von hinten wurden sie erschossen

ein gerodeter Wald von Körpern und Bäumen.

Die Sonne zeichnete Körper und Pflanzen im Feuer zum Aschefeld
einer verkohlten Landschaft.

Aufbrechen der toten Erdkruste
Dunkelheit,
Schwere im Innern,
in die man täglich hinabsteigt
blinde Beweglichkeit in konstanter Ausdauer
Maulwurfshügel, Vulkane, geheime Satellitenstationen
die Maulwürfe, die aus dem Innern der Erde ihre Klopfzeichen senden.

Straßenbahndepot in Weimar
Landschaft der 56.000

Den Schienenstrang durch das Tor ins Innere verlegen
ein kleiner Transportwagen aus Buchenwald
fährt in Herzrhythmen gegen die hintere Wand,
der Aufprall erzeugt Blitze,
die wie Seelenstränge an der Stirnwand emporzüngeln,
die Landschaft der Asche erhellen.

Les funérailles des instruments

Immer noch schlafen die Körper,
die Geigen auf den Gleisen warten geduldig auf den Transport ihrer Erlösung.
Der Wagen fährt über den Hals einer Geige,
im Zerbersten erklingt leise ein Ton.
Den Kaktus der Leere verschlingen.

Raum der Bücher
fließendes Wachs schweiße die Bücher zusammen,
verbrennt sie.
Eine Bibliothek aus Asche bauen.

– Rebecca Horn, 1997.