Even these Marx and Engels statues, having survived the fierce battle of symbolism, could not be exempt from the impacts of a subway construction plan laid out to pass right under the plaza. In 2010 fall, the City of Berlin moved the Marx and Engels statues to a more remote location in the park.

Han Sungpil produced a video, <Amor Fati>, portraying the entire process of moving the statue. The background music of <Amor Fati> flowing through the scene in which Marx and Engels’ statue is transported by a crane in <Amor Fati>, Beethoven’s Symphony. No. 5, adds a parodic ring to the adverse fate of the statue. However, as the humanistic values the statue embodies is not one to be easily ridiculed, <Amor Fati > also appears to be celebrating the aesthetics of a heroic existence that silently bears all such scorn. The title may be referring to the realm of ambiguity where these two meanings intersect.

The passive state of the statue, picked up and transported by a crane, has a certain ludicrousness to it. But from certain angles, the statue appears to be moving on without the aid of any external force, almost like Jehovah gliding along the surface of a still water, as if a spiritual being is wondering through the world. As a god, an idol, the statue holds certain grandeur. Was it Napoleon who said from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step? The contrast seen between two different portrayals of the scene could reflect the ironic feelings one must feel in witnessing the statue’s transference.

Written by Chin Jungkwon, 2011