PASSAGES*
a suicide, a monument, a film

It's not very often that one comes across an absolutely stunning contemporary public art work. For those interested in such things head off immediately to Port Bou, a small Catalan town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Hannah Arendt described the setting as one of the most beautiful she had ever seen. But the town itself is not beautiful. It used to be a customs town from which it derived most of its income legitimate and otherwise. Its vast railway yards, replicated in Cerebere, the French customs town across the border, attest to its former importance. In the 1970's I took a train from Barcelona to Paris. It stopped in both Port Bou and Cerbere for customs inspections, and to change trains since the railway gauge was different in France. When Spain joined the EU Port Bou's economy collapsed. Now it's after tourists and a brand new, EC funded marina has been built. But Port Bou is famous, or should that be, infamous, for being the place where the great German Jewish philosopher, Walter Benjamin, committed suicide.

In the summer of 2004 I was on holiday with friends in Port Vendres in France where Charles Rennie Mackintosh spent the last four years of his life drawing and painting. Like most other cultural tourists we headed into northern Catalonia seeking the Dali experience. I had insisted that I would want to stop in Port Bou on the way back to pay my respects to Benjamin. I had an idea that there was some kind of memorial to him but thought it might just be a plaque. We left Cadaques and Dali's house and studio (which by the way has a Mackintosh card table from one of his tearooms) and headed north for Port Vendres. I was driving the leading car and, as we dropped down into Port Bou in the early evening dusk, I caught sight of a sign, 'Walter Benjamin Memorial'. I turned sharp right and up a narrow road hoping that the following car had seen my sudden manoeuvre. The road snaked up to a cliff-top cemetery. Last to get out of the cars, I was greeted with, 'WOW! LOOK AT THIS!' We stood in awe and wonder at what lay before us - a corten steel tunnel that cut into the ground, passed through the cliff edge and came out overlooking the sea. About a hundred steps lead you down and as you descend you see ahead rocks lapped by the swirling sea. A few steps before tumbling out at the end there is a sheet of plate glass; inscribed on its surface, in several languages, is a Benjamin quotation;

IT IS MORE ARDUOUS TO HONOUR THE MEMORY OF THE NAMELESS THAN THAT OF THE RENOWNED. HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION IS DEVOTED TO THE MEMORY OF THE NAMELESS.

The sculpture, 'Passages', had been made by the artist Dani Karavan in 1995. The light had gone and we decided to return the next day to photograph the work, spend some time there and visit Benjamin's grave in the cemetery.

On our return we also discovered, in a rundown building, a small archival exhibition containing material related to Benjamin's death and the setting up of the memorial. Large portraits of Benjamin and Karavan, flanked the entrance. The archive papers were pinned to a number of 'A' frames with their titles in Catalan and all were yellowing and dusty. Language deficiencies made it difficult for us to get the most from the material displayed. I began to wonder who this archive was for. It was my first feeling that Port Bou was not quite sure about how to handle the death in its midst of one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. My special area of interest is public art and I have photographed many works all over the world. I had met Dani Karavan, visited and photographed a number of his works and included them in my lectures on public art. This memorial had been completed in 1995 and I wondered now how I had not come across it in books or magazines. Well, maybe I was not looking hard enough. But it does seem surprising when I now regard it as one of the great public art works of the late 20th century.