Parade Street
“On Sunday, March 7, 2021, I started to the Nazi Party Rally Ground on Große Straße.
I brought a camcorder along with Paul Thek -Tales the Tortoise Taught Us. Next I purchased a one-way ticket to Dutzendteich.After that I went down to the lower subway level and boarded the U3 sub of the inter-city transportation.
I sat down and opened the Tales. I glimpsed over the half title back page and faced 4 drawn banners, arranged one below the other. Each filled with the words “Get over yourself”.
The subway arrived at the main station and I
transferred into the tram 8 to Nuremberg Doku-Zentrum.
I read the blurbs and skimmed through the Tales. The first sentence read, “And we are back where we started, looking at objets d`art and worrying about pedestals and frames.“
It seemed the book was about a broad contextualization of Thek’s approach, and the Tales the Tortoise Taught Us referred maybe to the demystification of another art historical myth.
The tram arrived almost at the tram stop and I pushed the buzzer and got out in front of the unfinished congress hall of the former Nazi Party Rally Ground.
I moved my gaze to the right, and found myself on a field. This artificial landscape without cultural precedent began to dawn on me.
This drill ground is a concrete approach that inhabits an area of maybe 1 kilometre and merge into a 1.5 kilometre long parade street. Tony Smith wrote in 1966 about a crazy ride in the early 50’s on the New Jersey Turnpike and
understood this as a particular experience that had a kind of importance for him.
Also a few years later. And then trying to capture some of this experience, which he not did understood directly
as art.But have some other lived experience as part of it.
And he wanted that somehow to be part of an art experience.
Also in 1966 Susan Sonntag dedicated her collection of Essays Against Interpretation to Paul Thek. The title derived from a statement ofThek: I’m against interpretation. We don’t look at art when we interpret it. That’s not the way to look at art.
‘What is then the way to look at art, that might also be lived experience?’
Smith resided between 1953 und 1954 in Nuremberg.
He referred in his text further to the Nazi Party Rally Ground im facing right now in this lethargic afternoon.
A group of teenagers were throwing rocks at each
other near a green area on the right.
Further ahead was a artificial pond on the left,
surrounded by an artificial forest. Some stroller beyond on the Große Straße.
Actually the landscape was no landscape, but a
particularly kind of ruins in reverse.
I saw a white sign, that said: Herzlich Willkommen
- Nürnberger Volksfest.
It seemed that the parade street was planned to
start from the opposite end, cutting through the
landscape and pointing to somewhere distinctive.”Lucas Maximilian Frohn, 2021