Monument of a Forgotten Future

The rock formation on the side of the road on the “wild island” at the lock in Gelsenkirchen is not immediately recognizable as a work of art. In fact, it is a true-to-scale replica of a rock formation in the Joshua Tree National Park near Los Angeles. Covering a ground surface of roughly 150 square meters, 123 tons of concrete were poured over a steel skeleton and made to look like the natural stone. During the first months of the exhibition Emscherkunst.2010, a symphony by the Scottish band Mogwai played from inside the sculpture, clearly illustrating that the stone was artificial.
In this way, the stone not only reflects the role of the artist, who creates just as nature creates, but also the relationship between the natural and the artificial in the surrounding landscape. The Emscher was renatured here and transformed from a sewage canal back into a seemingly natural river landscape. The contradictory nature of the situation can also be seen in the title of the work: a prehistoric rock was used as the basis for a contemporary artwork, which is a monument commemorating an already forgotten future. As such, it seems there are many possibilities for the future and one of them represents a return to the origins.

Further reading:
Public Art Ruhr. Die Metropole Ruhr und die Kunst im öffentlichen Raum. Eds. Walter Smerling and Ferdinand Ulrich on behalf of the RuhrKunstMuseen, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-8632-134-0, pp. 130–131 .