Target

Intervention in shooting club, Brück 2011

Part of exhibition ‘On the Tresholds of Privacy’ organized by Kunstpflug

The motto of the Brück Schützenverein is: Üb Aug’ und Hand fürs Vaterland (Train eye and hand for the Father­land). This motto dates back to the 19th Century and is commonly used in some German shooting clubs still today, although it is militant and nationalistic. The Brück Schützenverein was closed from 1939 until 1991. When reopened the old motto was also taken back to use.

My proposal is to change the sentence to better accommodate contemporary values of the Schützenverein, which, although pursuing with heavy traditions and annual ritual flag parades, claims that shooting is only a sport activity.

I wrote a letter to the Brück Schützenverein with the proposal to reconsider the word ‘fürs Vaterland’ and per­haps to change to something else that they feel that represents and unites them. I discussed this matter in the board of the shooting club. The new motto with the chosen modified statement of the Brück Schützenverein should be painted on the new commemorative target. If an agreement is not found about what the club is fight­ing for or against on the 21st century, then the sentence in the shooting target will remain uncompleted. To my knowledge it is still uncompleted.

The target shows one of the most famous landscapes in Brück with the completely wooden antenna testing tow­ers from the 1960s.