FREUD'S TOMB

2018

The rubbing was taken at the Golders Green Crematorium in London. It shows the stele supporting the urn of Sigmund and Martha Freud with their names and dates of birth and death engraved on it. To make rubbings of the tombs of those to whom one feels connected is an Anglo-Saxon tradition, which I re-import from Freud’s exile back to the city where he spent almost his entire life. The import points to the fact that he has no grave in Vienna that could be visited. The empty space thus made visible exemplifies the emptiness left by the murder and expulsion of Jewish citizens in the Nazi era.

The making of a rubbing can also be considered as an image for the functioning of psychoanalysis. The engraving, which is obscured by the tautened paper, reappears on the surface of the paper during the rubbing, just as the work of the psychoanalyst brings the unconscious to resurface.