The figure "moore with minerals" is one of the most well-known exhibition pieces of the Grünes Gewölbe. On its tablet normally lies a large stone fragment studded with emeralds.
The Leipzig artist Betram Haude has – temporarily – taken it away and placed something else on the tablet: by and large unknown, rarely seen, unremarkable crystals: anthropogenic substances.
In contrast to the emeralds that originate from ancient rock strata, these substances may be ascribed to human activity. Most of them arose inadvertently, mostly as a result of mining.
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With this intervention on a historical object, the intention is to dig deeper in an already painful subject. The so-called moor, who laughs so warmly and is often admired only on account of his beauty and value, can tell us unpleasant things about the colonial legacy of Europe. And through the exchange of the emeralds for these new substances, our view is broadened once more: the colonial rule of humans extends not only to their fellow humans and their immediate living environments, but also to the whole, animate and inanimate, world.