Michael Schuster, COVID192020. Corona Memorial

Shortly after the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, the Institute for Art in Public Space Styria, together with the Cultural Department of the Province of Styria, based on an idea of the Kronen Zeitung, announced a two-stage competition for the erection of Corona memorials in Graz and Styria. The works of the artists Wolfgang Becksteiner, Werner Reiterer and Michael Schuster emerged as the victorious projects. With the installation of the Corona sculpture COVID192020, Michael Schuster erects a memorial to the state of emergency in society caused by the pandemic. The cracked lettering, which refers to both the name of the pandemic and the year in which it emerged and spread, is intended to inscribe itself in the collective memory as a symbol of remembrance. Both its fragility, and the unpleasantly flickering light, triggered by viewers approaching, symbolise the threat and brittleness of life itself. The massive podium, in contrast, stands for the power of resistance of the human organism.