Danish artist Jens Galschiøt’s “Pillar of Shame” was inaugurated in Berlin on Monday, May 22. The sculpture was made in the memory of China’s violent suppression of the protest movement in Beijing in 1989.
It is a copy of the eight-meter-high sculpture that the Danish artist had installed in Hong Kong, from where it disappeared.
It had been exhibited in several places in the city-state for more than 20 years. Most recently on the University of Hong Kong campus. In 2021 authorities had it dismantled and later confiscated according to the Axel Springer Freedom Foundation.
“The Pillar of Shame acts as a reminder of an inhumane event which must never be repeated,” says the artist.
It is unknown how many students and protesters died when the Chinese Communist Party sent in army forces to suppress the protests on June 4, 1989. The death toll may have run into several thousand.
Source: nordjyske.dk
