ERSAN
MONDTAG
Memory
as
a
Living
Body
“The question is: who is remembered –
and who is denied the right to remember?” – Ersan Mondtag
“The question is: who is remembered –
and who is denied the right to remember?”
– Ersan Mondtag
In his solo exhibition, ASBEST, Ersan Mondtag presents a powerful and deeply personal body of work confronting themes of memory, migration, and historical silence. Mondtag is known for his interdisciplinary practice at the intersection of theater, visual art, and ritual. He uses sculpture, installation, and scenography to create emotionally charged spaces where hidden or marginalized narratives can emerge.
With ASBEST, Mondtag turns his attention to his grandfather’s life and legacy – an exploited worker whose body bore the consequences of labor with asbestos – transforming biographical fragments into a haunting meditation on visibility, dignity, and remembrance. Throughout the exhibition, Mondtag explores the anatomy of memory as a living, shifting, and wounded presence, not as something fixed.
In this interview, he discusses the political urgency of art, the fragility of personal history, and why contradiction is integral to his work.
© Image by KÖNIG GALERIE
KÖNIG GALERIE: You grew up in Berlin in the 1990s – what formative experiences from your childhood and family history have most influenced your view of German society and the themes you explore in your art?
ERSAN MONDTAG: I grew up in a country that was supposedly reinventing itself – but that was only the narrative of the majority society. For my family, for people like my grandfather, this country wasn’t new. It was just indifferent in a different way. The ’90s in Berlin were loud, harsh, alien – and still our home. I grew up with a mix of hope and structural mistrust. That shaped me. I understood early on that history can never be told from a single perspective.
KG: Was there a particular moment when you realized: I’m going to be an artist? Would you describe yourself that way, or is there another term that better captures who you are and what you do?
EM: There was no single moment. It was a process. A plunge. I just knew: I want space. Space where others can speak – those who are otherwise not heard. Whether that becomes art, theater, ritual or installation doesn’t matter to me. I wouldn’t call myself an “artist” in the classical sense. I might be more of a medium. I create spaces in which stories can unfold.
Installation view by Roman März © Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE
KG: The title of your Biennale contribution, MONUMENT OF AN UNKNOWN MAN, refers to Bertolt Brecht’s critique of memory culture. What does memory mean to you – personally and socially?
EM: Memory is not an archive. It is alive, breathing, constantly shifting with each breath. In Germany, people often think of memory as something static – a memorial, a plaque. For me, memory is a body. And this body is wounded, migrant, resistant. The question is: who is remembered – and who is denied the right to remember?
KG: What was especially important to you when adapting the Biennale work for your solo exhibition at KÖNIG GALERIE – and in what ways has it perhaps changed?
EM: The gallery was a different language. In Venice, it was a collective monument, a place of silence and ghosts. At KÖNIG GALERIE, it became more intimate. More body, more flesh, more pain. I was able to go deeper into the anatomy of memory. And also into that of my own family. It became more personal, more fragile – perhaps more brutal.
KG: What new works have emerged as part of ASBEST, and how do they reflect or clarify your personal family history?
EM: I tried to fragment my grandfather’s face across time. The 28 busts are not representations – they are emotional and temporal states. Somewhere between hope and disintegration. The X-rayed lungs resemble negative relics. The body becomes sanctified through the violence inflicted upon it. This is not remembrance. It is an invocation.
Installation view by Roman März © Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE
KG: You speak of a “double narrative”: that of the exploited worker and, at the same time, a success story. Is this narrative representative of many migrant biographies?
EM: Yes. And that’s the paradox. You’re invited to partake in “prosperity” – but only up to the threshold of invisibility. My grandfather helped build this country – and was forgotten. And yet: he had a family, a home, dignity. I wanted to show both. Not just the victim, but also the man who laughed, who loved, who argued.
KG: Your grandfather died as a result of working with asbestos. How do you manage to tell such a tragic story not as a simple victim narrative, but as an ambivalent life story told with dignity?
EM: By not reducing him to the illness. I gave him back his life. Migration is not just pain – it’s also agency. Decision. Pride. The tragedy doesn’t lie in his death, but in the fact that he had no monument. So I built him one.
KG: You’ve said that art should not be reduced to a specific purpose. In what way can one create politically relevant art without appearing activist or didactic?
EM: By embracing ambiguity. By allowing contradictions. Art must not preach. It must seduce, disturb, open. I don’t want to provide answers – I want to ask questions that hurt. If someone leaves the theater with a lump in their throat, then it worked.
KG: You once said that art is a seismograph for the health of democracy. In your view, what is the current state of that seismograph?
EM: It’s spiking. Strongly. But I’m not sure if these are still tremors – or the quake itself. Democracy is tired. It no longer dreams, it only defends itself. Art could be its dream. But it has to want that.
Installation view by Roman März © Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE
KG: What does theater mean to you today – at a time when many cultural institutions are struggling to assert their relevance? What excites you more at the moment: the grand opera stage, the political gallery, or the intimate theater?
EM: Theater, for me, is a space of ritual. A sacred space. But it needs to shed its skin. I love opera for its excess. I love the gallery for its silence. I love theater when it becomes dangerous again. At its best, these three spaces converge. Then it becomes magic.
KG: Which stories, in your opinion, are the ones that still need to be told in the future?
EM: The stories of the invisible. Those standing on the margins. The ones missing from the curriculum. The ones unsure if they’re allowed to stay – but can no longer return. And the stories that don’t yet have a language. Not yet.
