WALTER BENJAMIN MEMORIAL
WEBSITE: WWW.WALTERBENJAMINPORTBOU.ORG
LOCATION: PASSEIG DE LA SARDANA, 11, 17497 PORTBOU, GIRONA
NEAREST AIRPORTS: GIRONA AIRPORT, 1 HOUR DRIVE
Of all the pilgrimages on The Art Pilgrim, Passages, the memorial sculpture created by Dani Karavan for Walter Benjamin in northern Spain, is the most modest. Rarely will you meet an art graduate who has not read and studied Benjamin’s work. To travel to the place where he died while being pursued by the Nazis is a very different kind of journey to the others I have recommended, but one I felt was important to write about. This is far more than a site of art pilgrimage.
It is a journey for those wishing to pay their respects to the great philosopher and social commentator Walter Benjamin, who found himself in Portbou, desperately trying to flee his Nazi pursuers by crossing the border from Spain to neutral Portugal, with the hope of transiting to America.
Born in 1892 in Berlin to a fully assimilated Jewish family, Benjamin grew up in an intensely intellectual household, with both his parents and extended family deeply involved in German academia. It was his uncle, William Stern, who coined the concept of the Intelligence Quotient, or “IQ”.
In his most famous art essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin argues that the more a work of art is reproduced, and the faster that reproduction occurs, the more it alters our perception of the original. The unique aura of the original fades, and it becomes harder for us to grasp the time and space in which it was created. This text was years ahead of its time and is even more relevant today, in an era where art is endlessly shared and devalued on platforms like Instagram and social media.
In this sculpture, Israeli artist Dani Karavan draws on Benjamin’s philosophy of the unique and unrepeatable experience to create a fitting homage. The work cannot be replicated; you must come here to truly see and feel it.
One enters a dark corridor and descends a long narrow staircase that leads to a hidden chamber. From there, the only view is an uninterrupted horizon of sea and sky. The passage is claustrophobic, but there is a sense of release upon reaching the bottom. I imagine this might echo how Benjamin felt in Portbou: isolated, fearful, and trapped.
On 26 September 1940, seeing no way out and fearing deportation to the concentration camps, Benjamin died. It remains unclear whether he took his own life or was murdered, but the prevailing account is that he committed suicide.
He was buried in a Catholic cemetery located just beside the sculpture. It is rumoured that the Spanish authorities were so shocked by his death that they granted exit to a group of around 2,000 Jewish refugees, allowing them to pass into Portugal and eventually on to America, effectively saving their lives, though there is no concrete evidence that this story is true.
